Family Secrets
by Gomro Morskopp
Summary: Every family has some skeletons in their closet. After a catastrophic mission and a terrifying event, Kim discovers hers. Sequel to "Automation Revelation"
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _The Nightmare Becomes Reality_ by Anima Morte; _The Rock, The Vulture and the Chain_ by Alpha 60, _Fool's Mate _by Peter Hammill.

* * *

The silence of the zeppelin cabin was suddenly broken. "So what happened there?" It was less a question, more a demand.

Drakken looked up sharply, all too aware of the edge in Shego's voice, and glared with distaste at the third person in the cabin. This team-up had been forced on them; each needed the help of the other to obtain their goal. Certainly he would have never considered working with the man otherwise. Quietly he got up, placed the purloined vial he had been examining in its shatterproof case, placed the case in the small safe and closed the door.

Just in case.

If Professor Dementor was at all concerned about Shego's anger, he gave no sign. "I told you I kould ze security defenses disable," he told Drakken, polishing the finish of the peculiar machine before him, "und I did. You haf zat biochemical vhatever-it-is," he sneered, "und _I_ haf ze Matter-Energy Integrator, vith vitch I zhall finish my GREATEST EXPERIMENT! Ve have both profited by zis enterprize."

"Shego," Drakken began, evenly, "asked you a question."

"Ach," sighed the diminutive scientist, "the minion. Yes? Vhat do you vant, minion? Out vith it. I have ze polishing to do. Doezn't it shine zo? _Schnell_!"

Her eyes were slits, her features stone. "One minute Possible and Stoppable were on us like black on a bowling ball. Then they were gone." Deep in the secret subterreanean installation, she'd lost track of both the mad scientist and their mutual adversaries. A few minutes later he'd turned up alone and unharmed. Unfortunately. There was something about the little man she couldn't stand. Something beyond his imperious screaming, or his stupid costume, or his condescending attitude toward both Dr. D. and herself. Not that any of those things helped, of course. "So what happened to them?"

"A, zhall ve zay, _opportunity_ prezented itzelf."

"_Oy_. Talking to you is like quizzing the Puzzler," she said, and scowled as if the words tasted foul in her mouth. The Perilous Puzzler was a villain from _The Fearless Ferret_, one of Drakken's favorite TV shows from the prehistoric 1960s. She hated every corny, low-budget moment of it, and yet she'd caught herself referring to it more and more in recent days. It must be soaking in during Drakken's marathon viewing sessions. When they got back to the lair, his prized DVDs were in for a plasma bath, whether he liked it or not. She wasn't going to lose another brain cell to such idiocy. "OK, let me try again. Try to answer without thinking too much about it this time. Your oh-so-mysterious villain schtick is wearing thin. _What_ _opportunity_?"

Annoyed, Dementor turned to Drakken. "Do you enjoy ze mindless jabber of ze underlings? If zis – admittedly imperial – zeppelin vas _mine_, I vould zis nonsense not allow a _microsecond_." He turned a hateful eye on Shego. "Minions speak vhen they are spoken TO."

"She isn't a minion." The blue man's tone was dry as autumn leaves. "And this isn't your zeppelin."

Dementor shrugged. "Very vell. You vant to know vhat happened, I vill tell you. It is no big. Isn't that vhat she would zay, our redhaired enemy? '_No big_.'" He laughed unpleasantly. "She VON'T be zaying it NOW!"

"Well?" Shego spat, her right hand crackling with green energy.

"I _shot_ her."

The green flames were instantly quenched, drowned in startled disbelief. "W-with what? Taser? Stun gun?"

The little man again laughed his nasty laugh. "Schtun gun, you bet." He produced a black pistol, proudly held it out for inspection. There was a tiny swastika engraved in the handle. "It has in ze family been a long time. But ve take goot care of our machineries. Three bullets right through ze heart. You zhould have zeen her face." He paused to relish the memory: the young woman's green eyes wide, her mouth open in surprise. Hands pressed to her chest as she crumpled to the metal floor. "She vas _schtunned_, all right. Zo vas Stoppable. ZAT they did not zee coming!"

He put the gun away, still smiling.

Drakken's face had turned a ghastly grey. He glanced at Shego, who looked slightly shell-shocked, and turned on Dementor. "We – we don't _do_ that. You know, there _is_ supervillain protocol. Custom. _Rules_! We use mind control, mutant monsters, laser beams, chocolate ganache. We don't use _pistols_! "

"Ah, but I _do_! Vith villain lights and monologues and death traps I am finished. Did you zee vhat Stoppable did to ze Lorwardians?"

"No. I was busy with their attack pods."

"_I_ did," growled Shego, daring the Bavarian scientist to shush her. She was beginning to develop a headache of inordinate size and scope. "I was there." With Kim's life in the balance, her boyfriend had finally claimed his birthright as the Chosen One of martial arts legend. The power of his _tai sheng pek kwar_ had not only routed the alien invaders, but destroyed them.

"Then you know ze stakes much higher haf become. Lethal threats must be MET vith lethal FORCE. Ve haf to STEP UP to meet ze CHALLENGE!" He slapped Drakken on the back, guffawed. "Ze big bad Mystical Monkey Master vas bawling like a _kleine Kind_. '_Kim, Kim! Hang on, honey!_' Hang on, honey. It vas hilarious." He wondered why they weren't laughing with him. Maybe you had to be there. "Und zo ve made vith the _getting avay_, und Kim Possible ist KAPUT!"

He paused, expecting a response, and got none from the speechless duo.

"Oh, come _on_! Our vorst nemesis I haf exterminated! Can I get a _hallelujah_?"

There was silence. He tried again. "OK, zo I _didn't_ get ze boyfriend. Maybe next time. It's still quite ze achievement, yah? How about a _huzzah_?"

Nothing.

"Just a _little_ huzzah?" The dwarfish madman lost his smile, began to rant. "I vas a fool to agree to vork vith you. Zis zort of old-school attitude is eggzactly vhy you two never accomplish ANYthing. Not everything in life _needz_ a Matter-Energy Integrator. Zometimes ze DIRECT ROUTE is BEST!"

"You're right." The harlequin woman stepped forward. Drakken was suddenly glad he'd put the precious Suspended Positron Colloid out of harm's way. Things were about to get ugly.

If it had been someone else, Frugal Lucre, say, or Duff Killigan, or even Cousin Eddy, he might have tried to talk her out of it.

It was Dementor, and so he simply took cover and watched.

Ugly lasted only a moment or two. Somewhere over Virginia, the zeppelin hatch swung open; both Dementor and the Matter-Energy Integrator flew out on a single green plasma bolt. The hatch slammed shut; the zeppelin cruised on.

Shego powered down, still troubled. "You think he was telling the truth? About Kimmie?"

"Time will tell." Noting the steel-spring tension in her posture, the small veins standing out at her temples, he knew that answer wasn't enough. "Dementor's a nut case," he added, breezily. "If I didn't need that solution desperately, I wouldn't have dealt with him at all. That whole story's probably a lie. He told it just to needle you. Us."

"The gun was real enough. Walther P-38. 9mm. Eight round magazine. Overall length, 8.38 inches, barrel length 4.88 inches, weight 33 point –" With a start, she realized she was babbling and cut herself off. "If anyone ever kills Princess, it'll be me."

"True."

"I'm better than she is."

"Yes. You are. Why don't you sit down a moment? That pacing is rocking the zeppelin –"

"Better. Stronger. Faster."

"Absolutely." He checked the instruments, made sure the autopilot was on course. Forty-five minutes and they'd be back at the lair. Then everything would be fine.

"It's more than a professional thing. It's personal. Like White Stripe's vendetta against the Ferret." He was startled by the insane fury in her eyes. "It _has_ to be me."

"It will be." He reached out to put a reassuring hand on her shoulder; she stepped back, deftly avoiding it. _Par for the course_, he thought. "You – you were _born_ to finish Possible. Figuratively speaking, of course."

"I'm better than she is. Better. Stronger. Fa –" She looked confused. "Déjà vu."

"You're just tired," he told her, trying to hide his concern. "A little rest will do you a world of good. And you'll see, Possible's ok. Dementor isn't good enough to stop her."

"_Wasn't_ good enough," she said, smiling maliciously, imagining the man plummeting to the earth far below. "And he won't get another shot at her."

He was both pleased and unnerved. "_Wasn't_ good enough, yes. Possible and her boyfriend will both be after us, I'm sure. You'll get your chance to prove yourself before you know it."

Her smile vanished. "_Prove_ myself? I don't have to prove myself to _anybody_. Least of all _you_."

He watched her stalk off toward her cabin, sadly shaking his head. If Dementor had been telling the truth – but he couldn't have. There was no way the small, clumsy man could have gotten the jump on Kim Possible.

But if he had –

"He couldn't," the blue man muttered to himself, opening the safe. He watched the chemical solution as it moved strangely in the vial, looked worriedly toward Shego's closed cabin door. Soon they'd be home. And everything would be all right.

He hoped.

* * *

Everything had happened so quickly. He was gaining on Dementor when Kim had cartwheeled ahead of him, glancing back with a mischievous smile before turning her full attention on their fleeing adversary. Even with his mastery of tai sheng pek kwar, she was more agile than he could ever hope to be, and she liked to prove it on occasion.

It had been a while since they'd been on a mission; most villains had laid low since the destruction of the Lorwardian invasion force. To be honest, he would have rather have spent the day at home, but KP was enjoying herself so much that he didn't mind the inconvenience.

And she was more than a match for Professor Dementor, even on her worst day.

Ron had slowed his pursuit, watching her back, in case this was the lead-in for an ambush. Shego was still around somewhere. They hadn't seen Drakken, but that didn't mean he wasn't also involved.

Kim had shouted something at the evil scientist; the words had been unintelligible, but the tone was purest Possible: confident, self-assured, never doubting victory.

Then the shots rang out.

Three jets of crimson had burst from her back, just below her left shoulder blade.

"Kim!" he'd heard himself scream, running toward her, unable to believe what had happened. "Hang on, honey!"

The young woman had staggered, lurched forward, and collapsed at Dementor's feet. The madman had grinned fiendishly as Ron ran toward them. "Upon YOU ze JOKE is, Kim Possible," he'd jeered, and then, with a whoosh of jet boots, had blazed down the corridor and out of sight.

He could have escaped them at any time. It had all been a ruse, a trap. Now the woman Ron loved lay sprawled on the floor, her life measured by the spreading crimson stain across the white of the self-sealing Battlesuit.

"Kim! _Kim!_" He cradled her in his arms, looked vainly about for – "Help! Help! Somebody _help!_" Where were the guards, where were the Global Justice agents that were usually all over a break-in of this magnitude? Even the security cameras had been blinded.

Her closed eyelids fluttered; she looked up at him with filmy, glazing eyes. Tried to form words, but her struggle to breathe defeated the effort. She raised one hand, let her fingertips lightly brush his cheek as, with a final sigh, she lost the battle. Her head lolled to one side as the eyes closed forever.

Just like in the movies.

His tears fell across her still face. Behind him there were footsteps, voices, a shocked murmuring. Three guards. Finally. He gently laid her body down, slowly turned to face them. "Where _were_ you? Where were you when he _shot_ her? She's dead because we had to do your work. _She's dead because we had to_ –"

The guards were starring beyond him, an eerie blue light reflected in their helmet visors. "_Look!_"

Kim's body was surrounded by a weird radiance. _It looks like ch'i_, Ron thought wildly. _Like the aura that gives me Mystical Monkey Power._

As they watched, the dark stain across her upper torso began to visibly shrink, as if the blood was somehow returning to her veins. Her closed eyes opened wide; with a rasping cry, she drew in a breath. Sat up.

Two guards fled down the hallway in panic; one passed out with a groan.

Ron stepped toward her, unable to believe what was happening, his eyes seeing it, his mind refusing to process it. Reached out to her, saw her take his hand as if in a dream, watched her get unsteadily to her feet. The Battlesuit was again snow white.

She threw her arms around him, clinging to him as the strange light faded, withdrawing into her flesh. "Ron," she gasped. "Ron, I – I was – I was in a dark place. Someone was calling my name."

"I thought I'd lost you. I _did_ lose you." He was about to kiss her; instead he drew back, wonder and apprehension on his features, his eyes locked on hers. "So what happened there?" It was not a demand, but a frightened question.

She released him, shocked. "Ron, it's _me_!" Her hand went to her chest, almost involuntarily, feeling for the fatal wound that wasn't there. Gingerly touching the place where the bullets had entered.

The bullets that had killed her.

"Maybe he _missed_," she said, knowing as she said it that it was ridiculous. She'd felt the shells tear through her body, the savage pain telling her that this was the end. "Maybe – maybe the Battlesuit had something to do with it. Maybe –"

"Maybe we need to get some answers, somewhere." Ron's mind was a churning whirlpool of clones, of synthodrones, of the videogame Zombie Mayhem. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not a synthodrone, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, I guess, somethin' like that." _She can read me like a book_, he thought. _A short book. Maybe more like a tabloid article. _He marshaled his thoughts and tried to continue. "Dementor and Shego are gonna haveta wait. This is way bigger than they are."

"Well…" she mused, as the unconscious guard got slowly to his feet, looked at her, and bolted down the hallway after his fellows, "I know where to start."

* * *

"So that's the story," Kim said. Ron simply nodded in agreement.

Her parents exchanged guilty glances across the table; Mrs. Dr. P. was the first to speak. "Honey, we're just glad you're all right."

"Mom, do you even understand what I just told you? I – came back to life. I was dead and now I'm alive. I know 'anything's possible for a Possible,' but _this_ –"

"Don't take that tone with your mother, Kimmie." Mr. Dr. P. looked to his wife. "It's time we told her. Maybe you were right."

"Right about _what_?" Deep in her regenerated heart she felt the stirrings of panic. "It's true, isn't it. I'm a clone. Or a synthodrone. Or an android. Or –"

"You aren't any of those things, dear." Mrs. Dr. P's voice was even, reassuring. "You're our daughter. And the daughters always inherit the gifts. It's in the genes."

"What...gifts?"

"Kimmie-cub," her father began, "I've never told you how me and your mother met."

She frowned in confusion. "You were in college, right? What's that got to do with it?"

"I _was_ in college," said Mr. Dr. P, "but that's not where we met."

"You'd better both sit down," added Mrs. Dr. P. "It's a pretty long tale. At least the way your father tells it."

"I suppose you could tell it better?" he asked, testily.

"I know where to start." She took Kim's hands, looked deeply into her daughter's eyes. "Honey – I'm not from around here."

"I knew it," Ron blurted. "Washington, right?"

"A little further out, Ron." She smiled. "Aldebaran."


	2. Chapter 2

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Stratos Airlines_ by Hydravion; _Adonia_ by Ose; _The Unexplained_ by Ataraxia.

* * *

Ron, slightly puzzled, ventured a response. "Are you talkin' about Al Dibbs' Bar and Grill, Mrs. P? In upper Lowerton?"

"It's a _star_, Ron." Kim looked as if she'd just been shot. Again.

"I wouldn't go that far, KP. More of a low dive with live entertainment." In the awkward silence that followed, he sheepishly added, "Or so I've been told."

"Mom – what do you mean, you're from Aldebaran?"

"Not _really_, honey, that would be impossible." She was pleased to see her daughter relax a little. Maybe she wasn't going to have too hard a time with this after all. "Stars are uninhabitable. Actually it was a _planet_ in the Aldebaran _system_, but the name Hydraia wouldn't mean anything to you."

"Didn't mean anything to _me_ the first time _I_ heard it," Mr. Dr. P. helpfully announced, "and I'm an astrophysicist."

"You were a scared space cadet the first time I saw you," said Mrs. Dr. P. with a twinkle in her eye.

"And you were the most beautiful outer space princess I'd ever seen. Especially when you blasted that hostile alien."

"No winged space lobster's gonna come between this Wilma and her Buck."

The Doctors P gazed at each other dreamily across the table, remembering.

Kim's gorchy feeling was growing by the moment. "I hate to break the, uh, mood, Mom, Dad, but this is – this is – this is _way_ weird. I mean, even for _our_ family, it's weird." She looked to her father, hoping for something she could fathom. "So – you met Mom on Hydraia. A planet orbiting Aldebaran. Is _that_ the sitch?"

"Oh no, Kimmie-cub. We haven't the technology to get to Hydraia. I met her on Pluto." His face grew grim. "Which _is_ a planet, no matter what Science may say."

"You said it, Mr. Dr. P." Ron's expression was equally somber. "Science doesn't know everything."

"I'm a scientist, Ron. That gives me the right to talk trash about Science. You're a Mystical Monkey Master. _Capeesh_?"

"Uh - capeeshed."

Mrs. Dr. P. quickly restored order. "Your father was accidentally launched aboard the unmanned space probe _Willy Ley_."

"Which wasn't _supposed_ to be launched until the _next day_," Mr. Dr. P. hastily added. "I'll always believe Dr. Harris did that as a _prank_."

"That's not what the records show, dear."

He frowned. "I don't _care_ what the records show. I know what they _told _me, and they _said_ the next day. Luckily there was a spacesuit on board. _One_ spacesuit. Pretty strange for an _unmanned_ space probe, don't you think?" He poured himself a cup of coffee, stirred sugar into it with ferocity. "Nothing's worse than being the butt of a scientific practical joke."

"Honey, we've been over this before. And it _was_ quite a few years ago."

"Wonder how _Harris_ would like to be lost in space."

Kim tried to get the conversation back on target. "Mom, if you're –" It was hard for her to actually form the words. "If you're from Aldebaran, how did you get to Pluto?"

"I was searching for habitable planets. We _did_ have the technology to cross the interstellar void. Quantum foam propulsion." Pride glowed in her features, so similar to those of her daughter. "Earth would have been perfect for us."

"You were – invading Earth?" Kim was appalled.

"Not like that, honey. We were trying to find a new home. Somewhere we could blend in. The whole star system was under attack –" She choked up. "I never saw the enemy. Just heard descriptions. Crazy descriptions. But now – I think they might have been the Septenant."

"The abstract art aliens?" Kim had encountered those creatures some years before. They had been preparing to assault the Earth when the first ship from Lorwardia arrived, bringing Warmonga on her quest to find the Great Blue, the prophecied Lorwardian messiah. The Septenant's bizarre, ultra-Darwinian philosophy led them to avoid beings they considered superior, so they'd left Earth to the mercy of the extraterrestrial techno-barbarians and sought easier prey elsewhere. The whole mission hadn't been one of Kim's most shining moments. "That's, uh, some coincidence, Mom."

"Isn't it? What were the chances?" Mrs. Dr. P. pulled herself together. "Regardless of what they were, the enemy horde was approaching, and we couldn't stop them. We'd put war behind us a thousand years before. Our most advanced weapon was the induction pistol. Not nearly enough. Our only chance of survival was escape."

"Like Superman," Ron said. "Except you weren't, you know, babies and all."

"Exactly, Ron. Like Superman." There was a deep sorrow in her eyes. "I'll never know what happened. The crustacean things on Pluto shot me down. They have designs on this solar system, I think; maybe some day we'll have to fight _them_ off."

Mr. Dr. P. put down his coffee cup; his wife motioned him to set it on the coaster, not on the tablecloth. Doing so, he added "One of the space lobsters was after me when I met your mother. Induction pistols _do_ work on them, believe me. What a mess."

"I thought he was a Hydraian," she said. "Another stranded scout."

"I thought she was from Earth," he responded. "Part of a rescue party."

"Together we were able to make one workable ship out of what was left of my craft and the _Willy Ley_. But no quantum foam drive. It was beyond repair."

"Why haven't you built a new one?" Kim asked, and immediately began apologizing for the question. "Not that I want you to _go_ or anything. I just wondered – you said you'd never know what happened on Hydraia – and it would help, uh, both our races –" _That sounded awful_, she thought. _All of the sudden I don't know how to talk to my Mom._

The woman called Anne Possible seemed to understand. "Can you drive a car, Kim?"

"Sure, Mom. Of course I can."

"Can you _build_ one?"

She laughed, recalling her efforts to rebuild her Dad's old car, the Sloth. "Not so much. Point taken."

"I wasn't trained to build interstellar craft. I was trained to fly them. Our educational system was very compartmentalized."

Kim was slowly beginning to accept this new development. "How did you understand each other? I'm sure they don't teach English on Hydraia."

"That's my gift, honey. It's a minor gift compared to some – x-ray vision, precognition, all that sort of stuff – but it's a very useful one."

"Your mother has something called block comprehension. She can analyze and apply linguistic information at a speed even our fastest computers can't match."

"Very handy for an extraterrestrial scout. No need for electronic translators. I can learn a new language almost as fast as someone speaks it."

Kim decided it was time to put all her cards on the table. "Why haven't you mentioned this before? All these years I've believed I was doing the missions with my way wicked cheerleader skills. Now – "

"Honey," began Mrs. Dr. P, "a lot of your success _was_ because of your 'way wicked cheerleading skills'. But some of it was due to your Hydraian heritage. Like dodging laser beams. Or pulling three-ton generators into position with nothing more than a grappling hook and your own strength. I always wondered why you didn't think that was a little odd. Do you think Bonnie or Tara could do that?"

"This is too big a thing to hide, Mom! Are you gonna tell the Tweebs when they come back from science camp?"

The Doctors P glanced at each other; an unspoken message seemed to pass between them. "Yes," said Kim's mother. "It's time to quit keeping secrets from each other in this family."

"We're sorry, Kim," added her father. "But the fewer people who know, the better. I pulled a lot of strings to get your mother into the system covertly. She has a background, a genealogy, a history, and it's all falsified. I could go to jail for that, but that's not the worst of it by far. There are people all over the world who would love to have a living alien in their collection. Van Statten, for instance. Ever heard of him?"

Both Kim and Ron shook their heads.

"Google him. You'll understand. Obsessed with extraterrestrial evidence. And he's got the money and the power to make it happen. If he knew. And he's only one of many."

"No one can know, Kim." Her mother almost whispered the words. "But we should have told you and the boys long before this. You too, Ron. We should have trusted you."

"Do the Tweebs have this power? Do you?"

"The boys can only be carriers. Maybe their children will have a gift. If they're girls. It's very gender-specific. And we never know which of the gifts a child may get. Mine is block comprehension. Fairly common among Hydraians. Yours is one of the rarest. We call it retro-metabolism. There is no test for it. You learn you have it one of two ways: get killed and resurrected, or –" She trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.

"Mom?"

"Kim, there are a few things that can still kill you. Permanently. Fire. Disintegration. Certain poisons. Electricity, if there's enough of it. But barring catastrophe, honey, you're going to live for a very long time."

"H – how long? A hundred years?"

Her mother's expression told her that was not the case.

"Two hundred?"

"On our world, it was not unusual for a woman with retro-metabolism to live twenty-five or thirty years. And our years were 17.7 times longer than yours. I'm sure you can do the math."

Ron reached out, took her hand.

She looked around the table, seeing her mother and father, so earnest, seeing the young man she loved, his eyes filled with concern, and she knew what it was to be utterly and completely alone.

* * *

Drakken stepped out of the transport tube to find Shego waiting on him, leaning on a stanchion, very calm and unconcerned, filing the clawed tips of her gloves. He knew that meant he was in trouble. Deep trouble.

The green woman nonchalantly asked a question. "So where's that positron stuff we risked life and limb to get?"

"None of your bees-wax, Shego." He tried to step by her, but she moved just a little to pin him between her and the transport tube. There was no avoiding this discussion. Much as he'd like to. "Anyway, what do you care?"

"I'm just curious. It wouldn't have been for that goofy computer thing you keep down there in that sub-sub-sub-sub-basement, would it?"

"What if it was? It was mine to use as I saw fit. And I have."

Shego shook her head, put her hand to her forehead in dismay. "So I gave up my weekend, and spent hours confined in a zeppelin with you and Professor Shout-A-Lot, and broke into a top-secret scientific facility – all so you could perk up that piece of junk?"

"Yes. That piece of junk." His voice was unusually stern. "Its sentient vectors were destabilizing. Personality fragmentation."

"I know it's hard, but please _try_ to make sense."

"Its, uh, _functions_ were becoming – _erratic_." Under his breath, he muttered "Not that it's much better at its best."

"How can you tell? It doesn't do _anything_. Lights flash and it makes weird noises. I've sat down there and watched it. That's it. Blink, blink, buzz, hum. A great invention. Miracle of the modern age. "

"Ridicule as much as you like, Shego. It does a lot more than that, and I know when it isn't working right. It was …losing its edge. "

"Its edge."

"It needed a new infusion of positronic colloid. The original had become depleted with the years. That's why we teamed up with Dementor. That's why we broke into that facility. That's why I've been down there all night working on –"

"Whoa, Dr. D. It's no big deal." His barely concealed anger bemused and amused her. It sounded almost as if he felt like he'd done _her_ a favor. "No need to get wound up about it."

"I could have spent my weekend doing something else too, you know."

She laughed. "Yeah, I'm sure you had some wild stuff lined up. Excuse me, Dr. D., but you think Karaoke Night's fun."

"It _is_ fun. You should get up and sing sometime. You'd learn how much fun it is."

She rolled her eyes in response.

With a scowl, Drakken continued. "And, you know, sometimes I'd like to do something other than tinker around with defiant, resistant, unappreciative equipment."

" ' The perversity of inanimate objects,' " she quoted sarcastically, and raised a hand crackling with emerald energy. "I can fix that. Give me five minutes down there and you'll never have to tinker with it again."

"What do you know about the Walther P-38?"

The question surprised her. "What? That gun Dementor had? I've read a little about them, somewhere. I don't need guns." She smiled a wicked smile, remembering how their brief fight on board the zeppelin had concluded. "It did him a lot of good, didn't it?"

"He may have killed Kim Possible. He probably did. How do you feel about that?"

"Is this Armchair Psychology Night? I don't like it, you know that. He cheated. But if it happened, it happened. _Que sera sera_." Her expression was unfathomable. "I'll put a rose on her grave."

"_Headache_ gone, then?"

Without thinking, she moved aside, let Drakken pass. Followed him out of the secret room, into the lab proper. The hidden door hissed shut behind them. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. Funny what an hour's sleep can do. I've been trying to get over it for weeks. Swallowin' Motrin like they were breath mints."

"I know."

His posture was oddly triumphant, as if he'd made a point. Worse, deep within Shego's mind there was a tiny, nagging thought that she should _acknowledge_ that. Respect his work. Obey. She shook it off. _That_ wasn't happening any time soon.

"I had a strange dream," she announced.

Drakken immediately turned around, all ears. "What? What have you been dreaming?"

"I dreamed," she began, surprised at his concern, "that I was in a room lined with 1s and 0s. I was trying to sort them out. Make them make sense. Whaddaya make of that, Dr. Armchair Psychologist?"

His interest was gone. "Who knows? Dreams are what you make of them."

"Well, I'm makin' what I can out of what's left of the weekend. See ya on Monday, Doc."

He watched her go with a strange expression on his face. Almost a tear in his eye. "This is how God must have felt," he mumbled, as the lair door slid shut, "in the Garden of Eden." Sometimes he wished he'd been raised in some other religion, instead of being dragged to the little Baptist church on the corner every Sunday morning. Something exciting, with UFOs and ancient astronauts and ominous portents. Not something full of guilt. And sin.

And rebellion.

He wandered the lair, found something else to work on, something else to plot and plan. Shego would be back Monday, punctual as clockwork. It was her nature. He knew it very well.

She was his invention, after all.


	3. Chapter 3

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Love it to Death_ by Alice Cooper; _Warrior on the Edge of Time_ by Hawkwind; _Live in Roma_ by New Goblin.

* * *

In the carefree months of summer, cars and their amorous young occupants would be scattered all over Osculation Point. It was autumn, almost winter, and a single car sat alone on the peak, looking out over the lights of Middleton as they twinkled far below.

The Sloth.

This had been Ron's idea, a place where they could talk without interference or interruption. A place where, not so very long ago, he had given her the ring she wore. A bolt of panic crashed deep within him; he was suddenly certain the ring was gone.

It wasn't.

"KP –" His voice was strangely hesitant. She closed her eyes, almost winced at the familiar nickname. Dreading the answer, he pressed on. "Is there someone else?"

"No, Ron. There'll never be anyone else."

"Then what's going on? What's happening?"

"You know what I did yesterday?" She was staring out the windshield, maybe at the stars. He couldn't tell.

"Ah – you talked to Monique about this?"

"This?"

"The reason we're here. The – uh – the _problem_." _The wedge that's growing between us_, he silently added. _The coldness that's come since you discovered your heritage._

"Monique," she murmured, as if remembering something from another life. There was no joy in the little smile the name evoked. "No. No, I didn't talk to Monique."

"Talked to your Mom again?"

"No." The smile was gone. A year's time had reared a wall between Kim and her mother.

"You need to. I know you've had some arguments, but – "

"She doesn't understand. It's a special thing where she came from. They have – I dunno, almost a _reverence_ for women with retro-metabolism. It's kinda gorchy."

"You mean, like they _worship_ them or something? Don't get mad, Kim, but that pegs my strange-o-meter."

"Tell me about it. I mean, Mom doesn't do anything _weird_, but it's like she's expecting me to lay golden eggs or something. Most of their greatest scientific achievements were made by people with four or five hundred years to work on a single problem. Cure for cancer. Quantum foam drive. Nearly indestructible alloys. Butter-side-up kitchen table field."

"What?"

"I made that last one up. Just a test. You looked like you were zoning."

"You know, we could _use_ a thing like that."

"I can't talk to Mom about how I feel. You know, at first I was excited about it. The gift. I mean, _crazy_ excited."

"I remember."

"But…" She trailed off. "Didn't talk to anybody. One more guess."

"Not in the mood, Kim. Tell me."

"I jumped in front of a train."

Ron knew his mouth was open, knew he wanted to say something, but no words would come. Instead his jaws flapped, the motions of a fish far, far out of water. Insanely, he remembered a cartoon they'd watched together with his little sister Hana, a cartoon about a dog who thought he was a superhero. The deluded pooch had tried that trick, too, as his hamster friend cheered him on and his feline captive begged him to reconsider.

Even in a cartoon, they'd barely escaped with their lives.

She was still watching the night sky. The Hyades. Aldebaran. "The automated train. The one only the government knows about." Dr. Drakken had tried to steal something from that train, a long time ago, but she couldn't remember what. Deserted by his brilliant, erratic sidekick Shego, he'd somehow found the courage to take Kim on alone. She couldn't remember how she'd stopped him, either. It was almost as if those things didn't matter anymore. "There was just a split second of pain. Like being slapped. Then I woke up, and the train was gone."

"Kim… you could have _died_."

"No. I couldn't."

"You don't _know_ that. Even with the gift, you're not indestructible. Or immortal."

"I'd lost two hours."

"Two hours," her fiancé tonelessly repeated.

"And a leg."

Against his will, Ron's gaze strayed to her perfect legs, snapped back to her face. Afraid now to even try to speak, afraid of what he might say to this stranger beside him.

"Retro-metabolism." She made it sound profane. A tear rolled down her cheek, barely visible in the dim light. "I grew a new one." With a kind of horrified fascination, she had watched it sprout, a tiny polyp of flesh developing bone and muscle and sinew, expanding until she was whole again. "I wish it had never happened. I wish we - we could put it back like it was before."

"The _leg_?"

She exploded. "Our _lives_, Ron! Don't be so stupid! Sometimes I swear I – I –" Realizing what she was about to say turned her anger to despair; without warning the weeks and months of bottled-up emotion burst free, an eruption of tears and sobs that shocked and frightened Ron far more than the train story. He reached out to hold her, to console her; she threw off his embrace, pulled away from him, opened the door.

"KP," he said, quietly, gently, earnestly. "Stop."

Half in, half out of the car, she hesitated, spoke. "Ron, it's just no good. Nothing's any good any more. Not since I found out. How – how can I love you? How can I love anyone? They'll be dead and dust while I'm still young." Her eyes begged him to understand. With all that was within him, he tried. "I'm – I'm afraid, Ron. Afraid to watch everyone I love die while I go on." She held out her hand, the one with the ring. It was shaking. "Look. This is how it's been ever since I understood what it meant. Ever since it sank in. You, Mom, Dad, the tweebs, everyone I know, everyone I see, they're less than ghosts." She slid back into the seat, shut the door to the night. "Mom doesn't understand at all. She thinks it's wonderful. The rarest of all the gifts." Her voice caught in her throat; she choked back a sob, went on. "I'm gonna live to be five hundred. Nana isn't even 90 and she doesn't know how to do anything. She still thinks VHS tape is cutting-edge."

"It _did_ outlast Beta."

"Mom says that won't happen. Mom says Hydraians with the gift continue to learn and understand their whole life. But I'm not Hydraian. I've told Mom over and over_, I'm not Hydraian_. I'm half Terran. All bets are off. I can't sleep. Can't think. My college classes are shot. I haven't even been attending."

"Kim…" He was stunned. Again. It was beginning to become annoying. He'd definitely gotten to the root of the problem, for all the good it had done. All the _tai sheng pek kwar_ in the galaxy couldn't fix this. If only Sensei were here. He might know what to say, might know what to do.

His student had no idea.

"Well, it's true. Westenhaver is droning on about ancient history and I'm thinking _someday this will be ancient history. And I'll be a dinosaur_. "

"You'll never be a dinosaur to me, KP," he blurted, desperate to say something that would make things right.

She stared at him, trying to make sense of his remark, a dozen emotions flitting over her features.

They were both startled by the urgent bleep of the Kimmunicator.

"Am I interrupting something?" Wade asked, his voice unexpectedly cracking. The handsome teen on the screen was quickly leaving his childhood pudginess behind. He tried again. "Ahem – that is, 'interrupting something?'"

"Always," they announced in unison.

"Sitch us," Kim said, expertly hiding the emotional chaos of the moment before. "Been a while since we've had a mission. Someone forget about Ron's –" she stammered, almost imperceptibly, "—gift?"

"These baddies don't _care_ about his gift." Wade was almost apologetic. "Phobos and Deimos."

Ron and Kim sighed. The cyborg twins were two of their newer adversaries. They didn't want to rule the world, or change the time stream, or extort a dollar from everyone on the planet. They were too crazy for that. The home-brew brain surgery that had connected them telepathically had also cost them their sanity, if they'd had any to begin with. They had no clever schemes. They just liked to have fun.

Catastrophic, devastating, destructive fun.

"Are there any _locks_ on the doors at the Maximum Security Prison for Super-Villains?" Ron snarled. "Are the guards on _strike_ or somethin'?"

Kim steeled herself to go face the lunatics. "So what is it this time?"

"It's pretty weird."

"Weird, I'm sure. Pretty, I have my doubts."

"Well, looks like they've got a _missile_ –"

A groan of dismay echoed across Osculation Point.

* * *

Shego stirred in her sleep, dreaming of passion and pleasure. "What's _wrong_, Midas," she purred, eyes closed, a wicked smile on her beautiful face. "Aww, can't you _take_ any more?" she murmured to the darkness, perhaps reliving a delicious evening not too long ago. Beneath the sheets she shivered with ecstasy.

Then her expression changed, her body tensed; she woke with a stifled cry. The same old nightmare. She dreamed it two or three times a year.

With a growl, she turned over, pulling the covers tight around her, trying to go back to sleep. Twenty minutes later she sighed, got out of bed, got a glass of water. Her hands shook, and that made her furious. No dream should be able to affect her like this.

The knock at her bedroom door made her start. "S-Shego? Are you – you all right in there?"

Dr. D.

She rarely stayed at the lair, despite the opulent rooms Drakken had provided. This was one of the reasons. "Stay out, "she snapped. "I'm – I'm not decent." She smiled, even snickered a little, considering all the levels of that comment. Then the memory of the dream returned to wipe the smile away. "It'll be a cold day in hell before I'll _ever_ call _him_ master," she muttered.

"What?" shouted the voice beyond the door. "Didn't catch that."

"Not talking to you! Go away! Trying to sleep!"

"I thought you _were_ talking to me."

"Trying to _sleep_!"

Drakken wobbled at the door, almost touching the knob, thought better of it and ran off through the lair. A few minutes later the doors opened in the secret room deep in the earth, where half his greatest invention was enshrined, protected from harm. He barely glanced at the towering computer, but strode purposefully to a small terminal beside it, sat down and punched in the access codes, feeling vaguely self-conscious. What she dreamed wasn't really his business; he was just curious. "You shouldn't dream at all," he told the huge machine, knowing it couldn't hear him. Its ears and eyes were elsewhere. "You should shut down, perform maintenance, and reboot. I didn't _design_ you to dream." But there were a lot of things she did that he hadn't designed. There had been so many accidents while he had been building the thing. The overturned mug of hot cocoa-moo. The mishap with dribbled solder. The night he'd pressed on, fighting the need to sleep, and found that he couldn't remember what he'd done the next morning. And then, of course, there was that bit with the aurora borealis. That shouldn't have happened, but it convinced him to put the main processor underground. Once he recovered from the burns.

All that boiled down to a single truth: she couldn't be duplicated.

With the click of a final key he accessed the memory of the giant thinking machine, the brain of his brainchild the Synthetic Humanoid Electronic Girl Operative, V. 1.0. It was simple enough to see what she'd dreamed; he'd just review the logs.

She had no idea of what she was; it was his secret. It was better for her if the world didn't know. It was better for her if _she_ didn't know. He'd had several opportunities to put that to the test. The last one had not only cost him the superhuman power of orgone energy, it had come close to costing him Shego herself. She had almost destroyed herself trying to prove she was human. Crazy girl. Crazy machine. Then Kim Possible and her buffoon had come in the door, dragging most of Global Justice in their wake, and he had only _just_ finished the repairs.

If Operation Stargazer had worked as planned, he would have had the power to destroy them all, even Mr. O-So-Powerful-Monkey-Fu-Boy.

Instead he'd dismantled the orgone accumulator to get parts for his damaged sidekick.

That whole evening had gone horribly wrong; the only benefit salvaged from it was the simple fact that now Shego knew what was down here. Just some sort of profoundly uninteresting computer thing. One of his old inventions. There was no more danger of her snooping around, discovering it herself, and eventually realizing what it was. What _she_ was.

If he had known how much trouble fembots could make, he would have never dedicated himself to building one.

He leaned into the screen, an evil sneer on his blue face. "So what _were_ you dreaming, my little – _wow_! Holy _cats_! _Gz_!" Embarrassed and shocked, he spun, almost falling from the chair. He had no idea the human form could be that pliant. One more thing he hadn't designed her to do, even though her android body was fully functional. Another blunder in design.

Shego's voice came from the monitor speakers, faint but clear: "What's _wrong_, Midas? Aww, can't you _take_ any more?" Cautiously Drakken peered over at the screen, almost as if he expected it to hit him. As he did, the image blurred, faded, became his own visage, static-laden, barely recognizable.

"Can you hear me?" he heard his own voice ask, and remembered that moment well. "Can you see me?"

"Yes, Master," came his sidekick's voice, flat, without personality. She hadn't been online long. The annoying aspects of her sentience hadn't developed yet.

" 'Master,' " tittered the face on the screen. "This is gonna be so cool. Do you know who I am, and what you are?"

"Is your memory at fault, Master?" The voice was still without emotion, but hearing it again, Drakken realized with a scowl that he was witnessing the genesis of future problems. _Hindsight is always 20/20,_ he thought. "You should run checksum routines. Master."

"Never mind that, Shego. Your purpose is –"

"My name is Juliette, Master. You should run checksum routines."

"I've changed my mind. Remember, people are entitled to their own opinion. They're entitled to change their mind. They don't have to run checksum routines every time they get a new idea. "

"Yes, Master. Command confirmed."

Drakken facepalmed himself, staggered from the chair as if drunk, banged his head several times against the metal framework of the giant computer. What had he been _thinking_, telling her something like that? Hadn't he realized she was accepting that as _operational parameters_? "Arrgghh," he arrgghhed, to no one in particular.

The face on the screen continued its rant. "I'm _changing_ the name. You are the Synthetic Humanoid Electronic Girl Operative, so I'm calling you Shego." The image sneered. "Understand? Confirm command."

"Command confirmed. Master."

"Shego, I built you for one reason and one reason only." He held up a photo. "This is Kimberly Ann Possible."

"That photo is already recorded in my memory core." Was there the slightest hint of sarcasm in the robotic voice? "_Master_."

"You are not to rest until you see Kim Possible dead. Confirm command."

"Command confirmed."

"Command confirmed…" his image repeated, irritated. Drakken watched his on-screen expression grow dark, waiting, and remembered exactly how this ended. And now he realized why. "Command confirmed… there's an honorific missing, Shego."

But the image on screen swung away from Drakken, to the shiny surface of the huge computer. To the reflection there, the half-finished android, the metallic construction of the lower jaw still exposed, the left arm incomplete, much of the body not yet furnished with synthomesh flesh. There was a sound, a noise, a miserable, electronic wail that sent shudders down Drakken's spine.

The screen went dark. A moment later the lights came on; he recognized her room, realized the dream was finished, typed the command to end log replay. "This won't do," he told the empty room. "Won't do at all. She can't keep dreaming about _that_. My mistake. I was excited. Activated her too soon." He clicked the mouse, brought up the memory core editor, something he used with extreme caution. Too many changes would destroy her personality vectors, reduce her to the automaton she had been in the dream. Not that he hadn't been tempted on occasion to erase the whole thing and start from scratch.

Tempted. That was all. He knew he couldn't do that. It would be like killing her. Flaws and all, she was his creation. His. Not something stolen from another scientist, or a Government thinktank, or aliens. He had designed and built her, his greatest invention. He looked up at the giant computer, its massive positron globe filled with pastel colour, generating a peaceful, cozy humming, like the refrigerator late at night, in a warm house, and he smiled.

Upstairs, Shego was dreamlessly sleeping.

Almost tenderly he selected a section of memory, highlighted it, quarantined it. That was all. He didn't dare erase it, but he could prevent it from manifesting itself in whatever passed for her subconscious. No more nightmares for –

He drew back from the thought, dismissed it. She was a machine, nothing more.

Defying quarantine, the idea pursued him from the room.


	4. Chapter 4

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Brilliant_ by Ultravox; _Onward_ by Hawkwind; _Live in Roma_ by New Goblin.

* * *

A pink speck in the cloudless blue sky, the Sloth flew toward their destination, its engines roaring, its shadow nebulously cast on the desert sands below.

Ron broke the hundred-mile silence. "KP, you sure you're up to this?"

"Does it matter?" the young woman snapped, and immediately softened. "Sorry, Ron. You're right – I'm not in the mood for this. Especially not _these_ nutbars. I'd rather stick my hand in a hornet's nest."

"Then go find a hornet's nest and let me handle the twins. After all, I _am_ the Mystical Monkey Master."

"You sure are," she said, and smiled a small but genuine smile, the first one in a while. "You know how _that_ would go."

"Now, see, you say that like the outcome was certain."

"Don't take this the wrong way, Ron, but I watched a _naco_ outwit you last night."

"It was _defective_! Blame the kitchen crew, not me. At least it didn't stain the upholstery."

She laughed. "The hornets will have to wait. We're a team. We always have been."

"And we always will be," he replied, but she didn't answer. "There, down below. Looks like the place."

The building might have once been a repair shop for giant Euclid earthmovers, or a storage shed for B-52s. It looked run-down, long-abandoned: a clever façade. The Sloth's tires had barely brushed the ground when a swarm of cybernetically enhanced horned toads leaped from the sand, chromium teeth snapping, venomous spines bristling, daring anyone to disembark.

On the roof of the huge building, Ron rolled up his parachute, looked down at the little vehicle. "Looks like you called that one, KP. Those things look _crazy_ vicious."

"No less vicious than Phobos and Deimos. _Or_ crazy." She had her laser lipstick out, cutting a hole in the armour-plated roof. "You think they engineered those?"

"Who _else_ would?"

"Looks too _professional_. Remember, they mounted cybertronic circuitry in _their own brains_. With kitchen utensils and power tools."

"Maybe they took their time with these." He shuddered, watching the half-machine creatures surround the Sloth. "Man, they are wound up tight. Like, I dunno, _desert piranhas_."

"Desert piranhas." The armour plate was showing a little more resistance than she'd expected. She sized up the circle she'd scored in the roof and brought one foot down on its edge, hard. The steel plate snapped up; she caught it, used its own momentum to fling it over the side of the building. _Way wicked cheerleader skills_, thought the child of Hydraia. _Mom and Dad were right – no other girl on the squad could have done that_, reflected the daughter of Earth. _Why didn't I realize there had to be more to it than that? Did I just not _want_ to believe I was that different?_

The unasked question went unanswered.

The Chosen One and Mystical Monkey Master was still fixated on the scene below. "Which is worse, two hundred foot-long cybernetic horned toads, or one two-hundred-foot long cybernetic horned toad?"

"Let's hope we don't find out."

He pulled out a key fob, clicked a button. The Sloth's lights blinked; immediately the cyber-reptiles bristled, ready to attack. "The tweebs always said this remote control would come in handy."

"We'll fly it back up here when we're finished. The horned toads'll have to find some other entrée." She climbed carefully down into the hole. "Come on. Quickest done, quickest home."

Following her lead, Ron descended into the lair. "Maybe this time it'll go like clockwork."

The word instantly brought a frown to her face. "The last time you mentioned 'clockwork,' we ended up inside a _live volcano_."

"That _could_ have been worse –"

"During an _eruption_."

"But we got out unscathed –"

"With Monkey Fist's _magma mandrills_ on our heels."

"Magma mandrills. The fury of an unleashed ape… and fire besides."

"No more 'clockwork'. I _mean_ it."

"But I've got a good feeling about _this_ one, KP. I mean, it's just Phobos and Deimos. We'll have them back in the asylum in twenty minutes, tops."

Twenty minutes, a villainous rant and a heated brawl later, Kim peered stealthily around a gigantic fuel tank, saw no one. The path to the missile's launch pad was clear. "I'm not fallin' for _that_," she muttered to the Kimmunicator. "Can you get a bead on the twins, Wade? Home in on their energy signature or something? We really need to get them off our backs."

"I've been trying, Kim. Got nada. They're getting wise to our old tricks."

_Old tricks._ Sometimes she missed the villains of her high-school years, villains like Professor Dementor, Duff Killigan, the Seniors and, of course, Drakken and Shego. Villains with plans, with motive, with purpose. They had been far more predictable than this new breed of baddie.

_On the other hand_, she thought, _Dementor did_ _kill_ _me. _Her pulse pounded in her chest, the sound of her breathing filled her ears. Suddenly it seemed a lot colder than it was.

The tinny voice from the Kimmunicator returned her to reality. "That's a Bomarc." Wade sounded almost awed. "Surface to air rocket. Been obsolete for years. I didn't know there were any of them left."

"Can it actually do what they're planning to do with it?"

"That one can. There've been some modifications." Crazy or not, Phobos and Deimos were particularly ingenious when it came to missiles and rockets. Unfortunately. "And I'm definitely reading a nuclear payload. Small, but strong enough. It must be one of Canada's Bomarcs. They had a little _government collapse_ over using nukes in 'em."

"I hadn't heard."

"It was a long time ago. The pro-nuke contingent won out. Which has brought us to _this_." He clicked some keys, looked at a monitor with increasing concern. "Yeah, if they launch it, bye bye New Jersey."

"Then we'll have to make the first move. Wish me luck." Tensed for action, she stepped out toward the missile.

Phobos' laser lashed out, slashed the air where Kim had been a second before, flashed again and again, cutting molten ruts in the metal floor as its target sprang, cartwheeled, backflipped, taking cover behind anything she could use, from support pylons to computer banks, gradually making her way toward the rocket.

On the digital display overhead, the countdown continued. Fourteen minutes to liftoff.

"Kim!" On the other side of the lair, Ron was engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with Deimos, trying to get close enough to subdue her while avoiding a blast from the sonic disruptor that protruded from the side of her head. The metallic walls flickered with the blue light of his ch'i. "I'll handle these maniacs!"

"No you won't," snarled his opponent, seeing an opportunity. The disruptor thundered, slamming him against the wall. "These maniacs _know_ what you can do."

Phobos appeared on a walkway overhead. "You took the Lorwardians by _surprise._" Her laser eye flared. "Like that."

"Hey, they _started_ it!" Ron deftly dodged the deadly beam, a trick that had once been Kim's specialty alone. _Tai sheng pek kwar has definitely improved my odds, _he thought. "It's not like we _asked_ them to invade."

""Treachery," spat Deimos. A disruptor blast dented the steel wall behind Ron, ruptured the massive fuel tank. The stifling stench of 80-octane gasoline filled the air.

"Deceit." The laser shot out; suddenly the floor was awash in flame. "Have some _fire_, Scarecrow," giggled the insane blonde cyborg, leering down at the conflagration.

With a whoosh of back-pack jets, her sister joined her on the walkway. "Did you ever see _The Wizard of Oz_?" she shouted to their terrified adversary as the blazing liquid swept toward him. "There was this _witch_ –"

The flames were upon him. "With _flying monkeys_!" Summoning all the force Mystical Monkey Power could supply, Ron leaped thirty feet in the air, defying gravity, spinning in midair to dodge another laser beam. Foam sprayed down from the ceiling, spewed from micronozzles in the walls, smothering the spreading conflagration before it could reach the Bomarc.

Seeing that, he realized why Kim had asked him about the cybernetic horned toads._ They're too crazy to have designed and built all this themselves. Which means we've got bigger trouble somewhere else. _

He barely touched the ground before a sonic onslaught sent him spinning. For all his power, he was in retreat. Memories of last night's naco debacle rose up to haunt and annoy him.

"Not gonna spoil our _revenge_, monkeyman." Ron wasn't sure which of them had said that. The other continued: "No _spoilers_."

They glanced at each other and smiled.

Unnoticed by the twins, Kim was prying open an access panel, climbing into the Bomarc's innards. "Wade, how do I defuse this thing?"

"Cut the red wire."

"There are _countless_ red wires." She held the Kimmunicator over the tangled mess of cables. Wade's response was exactly what she feared.

"I'll get back to you."

"Please and thank you," she babbled out of habit, looking out at the countdown screen. Eight minutes.

Fleeing a sustained laser discharge, Ron shouted up at his opponents. "I'm a little hazy on the whole revenge angle. So what was it again? Gonna blow up Albany?" He jumped backward as a sonic blast smashed down at his feet. "Got it in for – uh – Albanians?"

" No! _Browns Mills, New Jersey_!" shrieked Deimos. "Pay attention! We've already told you once. We went to a concert there—"

"—and they cancelled the gig." When the twins got excited, they began completing each other's sentences in ping-pong stereo. That defective telepathic link also made them more vulnerable; knock one unconscious and you got the other as well.

Unfortunately, they were extremely adept at keeping distance between themselves and their enemies, and their built-in long-range weapons were second to none.

The laser flared again. "They blamed it on the _hurricane_ –"

The disruptor roared. " – but we knew better."

"It was because _we_ came." Laser.

"Bigots. No cyborgs allowed." Disruptor.

"No _blonde_ cyborgs allowed." Laser _and_ disruptor.

"And our Ominous Minibus doesn't get many miles to the gallon, either. The trip cost us a _fortune_." A perfect storm of technological destruction rained down from the catwalk.

Ducking behind a particularly massive stanchion, Ron continued to taunt, between gasps for breath. Even the power of the Chosen One had its limits. "Couldn't – have cost – as much as a Bomarc – and a lair to fire it from."

The attack suddenly ceased while the twins grappled with his comment. "We didn't buy this."

"It was _given_ to us."

"For our _revenge_."

"You don't say." Kim was right. Decoys. Somewhere, some evil mastermind was getting away with murder while they struggled with the cyborg loonies. He glanced up at the screen. Six minutes. He'd seen Kim slip inside the missile while the twins were preoccupied with him. Any second now she'd jump out, mission accomplished, and together they'd take care of these crazies.

Just like clockwork.

"So, uh, who gave you this –"

With a deafening roar the Bomarc ascended on a tail of flame.

"No! _Kim!_ Get _out_! " Heedless of the danger, Ron ran across the lair, tried to use his ch'i to reach out and stop the rocket. During the Lorwardian battle, he had psychically lifted entire attack pods to use as weapons. An old missile should be child's play.

But the Bomarc was already beyond his range of influence, shrinking into the sky. "There were _six minutes_!" he wailed. _"KP!"_

"We _always_ set our _alarm clock_ up six minutes," came Phobos' reply, right behind him. "That way we're never late."

"But your _girlfriend_ will be, if she was _in_ there," added Deimos. "The _late_ Kim Possible." More giggling.

Both of them were standing less than a foot away, staring happily up into the sky, transfixed by the flight of their soaring vengeance.

What he did then he wasn't proud of later. After all, they were girls. Dangerously insane, cybernetically-enhanced girls, but girls just the same. And guys shouldn't hit girls, as a rule.

But he did.

"_Wade!_" Kim shouted, as the view from the access panel became blue sky and clouds. "Need an answer _now_!"

"Kim, you're gonna need to find the circuit schematic. It should be in a small hatch on the left side of the –"

She grabbed the wad of cables, yanked with all her might. There was a flash of sparks, the smell of smoke, and the roar of the rocket engine spluttered and died. Almost instantly she felt the shift in trajectory as the crippled rocket plummeted back to earth.

"Well, that worked," Wade announced.

"How about the nuke?"

"A mere crash won't detonate it. It takes special treatment. And you've disabled the detonator along with everything else."

"Ok, time to bail," she said, more to herself than to Wade, and leaned out of the missile, only to realize, in horror, that she was already over a mile in the air. A moment from the past flashed through her mind: the night that Shego and Motor Ed had stolen her father's project, the spacecraft _Kepler_. Ed's giant mecha had seized her in its claws, thrown her about as far and as high as this rocket. Luckily she'd had one of Wade's experiments with her: a hair gel that doubled as an instant polymer cushion, absorbing the impact and saving her from harm.

And now she knew she would have survived it anyway. Retro-metabolism.

"I don't see anything to laugh at, Kim," said the young genius, genuinely worried by what he heard and saw on his screen. "I'm sorry. I've got nothing to suggest."

"A mile of free fall. It can't be any worse than getting hit by a _train_, can it?"

"Most people don't –" he swallowed, hard –" survive that."

"I'm not most people. See you in a couple of hours," she jauntily, almost insanely announced, pocketed the Kimmunicator and leaped from the missile. Fire, she recalled, could still kill her, and there was little doubt that the Bomarc would go up in flames at the crash site. At least the thing would still be in the desert when it hit.

She wondered how Ron was doing with the cyborg menace. Probably had it under control by now. Wondered if she would ever see him again. Even retro-metabolism's miraculous abilities had to have a limit. And suddenly she realized something very important, something she hoped she'd have an opportunity to consider more deeply.

Something that had almost been lost in the valley of the shadow.

Life. And the living of it.

She closed her eyes to the earth below.


	5. Chapter 5

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Brilliant_ by Ultravox; _The Xenon Codex_ by Hawkwind; _Valta_ by Alamaailman Vasarat.

* * *

"Sayonara, Dr. D, " Shego breezily announced, heading for the exit. "See ya in a week. Try not to get arrested or blown up or disintegrated while I'm gone, ok?"

"Have fun," Drakken muttered, grabbing a book off the cluttered desk, pretending to be deeply engrossed in its arcane mysteries. He hated to see her leave, but he hated letting her see him tear up even more. He couldn't even read the words on the pages. It was so lonely in the lair when she wasn't around. "Send me a postcard or something."

"If I remember. Let me know how the phone book comes out. It'll be easier to read if you turn it right side up."

He set down the book and watched her confidently stride out the door, posture picture-perfect, feeling a rare, well-deserved pride in his work_. No one knows she's not a human being_, he thought. _She doesn't know it herself._ She was much more successful than the Bebes had been, but he hadn't really worried about their looks. He had spent a lot of time on the Synthetic Humanoid Electronic Girl Operative's appearance. Researched the female anatomy from head to toe, defying the embarrassment and discomfort that research brought him, determined to finally get something _right_.

And he had.

She was beautiful. _Far_ more attractive than that wretched spawn of Jim and Anne Possible. _Their_ creation would wither and die with time, if Shego didn't destroy her – the only portion of her original programming she still obeyed without question, though certainly on her own terms. He remembered very, very clearly the day he ordered her to attack Kim Possible, only to be told "I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for _me_." The Girl Operative's own memory of that moment was faulty, corrupted with elements of the _Fearless Ferret_ episodes he had foolishly allowed her to watch in her pre-sentient state, not realizing she was still learning to process reality. That blunder had given Shego a fantasy past: a sci-fi origin, a former heroic career, super-powered nemeses, even a band of brothers that she hated with a passion. None of it real.

But her statement had been real enough. It had cut him to the heart.

That didn't matter. _His_ creation would last the centuries. Her body was incredibly resilient to damage, and if it was destroyed, somehow, he could construct another. Her mind was irreplaceable, so he had seen to its protection; the underground vault that contained the positronic brain was impervious to anything short of the end of the world. When James Possible's daughter was long-forgotten _dust_, his would be just as young and beautiful as ever, a living testament to the immortal genius of Dr. Drakken –

His – _what_?

"Invention," he told the empty room. "My _invention_." He got up, wandered toward the kitchen, came back with an ice cream sandwich and grabbed the TV remote. Channels and programs fluttered by in parade: _The Biggest Bruiser, Septuagenarian Mom, Postmodern Family_, _C.S.I: Central City, C.S.I: Innsmouth, C.S.I: Diaspar_. The next click held his attention. "_Whoa_!" There was awe in his voice. "Is this _Invasion of the Energy Vampires_? Missed that one at the theatre…still in the _hoosegow_!"

"This is not a scene from _Invasion of the Energy Vampires_," announced Gregg Greatman, anchorman at KXKVI-TV. With a grumble, Drakken went for the remote; before he could push the button, Greatman continued: "This is… All Too Real."

"Ooo!" Fascinated, the blue man leaned forward. On the screen, waves of unknown force voraciously drew power from overhead lines, whirring dynamos and giant transformers, all of it focused on a brilliantly glowing shape standing in the centre of the sizzling maelstrom. No details were visible in the glare, but something about its outline filled Drakken with a troubling familiarity. It was at least eight feet tall and even as he watched, it continued to grow.

Greatman's voice droned over the images. "This was the scene yesterday at the Navarez Electro powerplant in Brazil, the largest of its kind in the world. KXKVI has obtained this exclusive footage of the mysterious attack, which blacked out most of South America for nearly two hours." The incandescent form suddenly shot into the sky on a tail of flame. "No clues to the perpetuator's identity as yet," finished Greatman from behind his desk.

The camera cut to former weather girl Summer Gale, now a news anchor. The barely concealed rivalry between Gale and Greatman had boosted ratings quite a bit, but Gale's presentation here lacked any of the usual snarky remarks or cutting comments; perhaps she found this news too important to treat lightly. "Meanwhile, a missile attack on New Jersey, masterminded by the escaped supercriminals Phobos and Deimos, was thwarted yesterday by heroine Kim Possible and her super-powered fiancé Ron Stoppable, at almost the same time the Navarez Electro plant was being ravaged. Coincidence?" The camera zoomed in dramatically. "_I think not_."

Drakken nodded his agreement. "Smells like a red herring to me," he said, just before the entrance to the lair exploded.

* * *

Kim recognized the glowing silhouette onscreen immediately. "That's Dementor," she cried out, sitting bolt upright in the hospital bed.

Ron objected. "It's ten feet tall."

"_That's Dementor_." She was up, ready to go, despite the IVs in her arms. "Where's the Kimmunicator? He's old-school; Wade can probably track him –"

"KP, you can't. You're not ready. Retro-metabolism might have rebuilt you after the fall, but you were out in the desert sun for –"

"I'm fine. The gift can't stop dehydration, but it makes recovery a breeze." Ron tried to guide her back to the bed; she shook him off, startled. "But you _know_ that. This isn't about my condition. It's about Dementor."

"He shot –" The young man trailed off, unable to form the words, and tried again. "I thought I'd lost you the last time we went after him." He gestured at the television, where the catastrophic scene had just given way to Gregg Greatman's face. "If that _was_ him, he's become something terrible. Electricity is still one of your weaknesses, and it looked like he was full of it."

She yanked the IV needles out; tiny flashes of blue instantly healed the pinprick wounds. "He's full of it, all right." She recalled his cruel face, his vicious laugh as the bullets tore through her body, and her features hardened. "I owe him one."

"Don't do this, Kim. Please. Let me handle it. _You're not ready_," he repeated, perhaps a bit too desperately.

"Yes I am!"

"No. You aren't. You've been doing some crazy things. With, like, _trains_ and stuff. I'm afraid you'll –"

"Try something _stupid_?" she snapped.

"KP." So much concern on his face. "I _love_ you. I'm just afraid – you're going to – to-" He turned away, tears on his face, still unable to form that lethal word.

Those tears broke her. For the moment, Dementor was forgotten. "Oh, Ron – no. No, I'm – I'm done with that. Believe me. Please believe me. It's just – ever since I realized what having this – gift – meant, all I could do was think of death. Think about watching everything and everyone I know slip away, and me powerless to stop it. And I know I've been short with you. I'm sorry. I - I appreciate what you tried to do. Bring me out of it." _Despite the fights_, she thought, and realized again how much he cared. " I was falling from the Bomarc and everything came clear."

"Maybe you could clear it up for _me_, then."

"I was falling, and I thought about all the times I've fallen before…" She swallowed hard. "And I knew nothing was different. Especially for us. We've always dared death, ever since the first mission. That's how we beat it. By living. By daring to keep on living."

"I don't understand…"

"We don't have to. That's the important part. We don't have to understand, we just have to live. Despite the shadows."

"Kim, this is all happening… a bit fast…"

"I've got to make things right with Mom, too. I've been blaming her for this. This gift. I – I have to tell her I'm sorry. And you too. I'm sorry, Ron. I've been looking at this all wrong. At everything all wrong." Impetuously she kissed him. "Did that help?"

He looked a bit dazed. "I didn't quite get it. Let's try it again."

* * *

The giant figure stalked through the huge hole in the wall, dragged Drakken from the debris, held him high in the air. "I just thought I vould DROP IN on mein OLD FRIENDS und ve could talk about ze OLD TIMES," Dementor roared. "Like ze time you vatched Shego THROW ME FROM THE ZEPPELIN und didn't lift a little PINKY to STOP HER." He shook the blue man, hard. "Are you remembering?" Another vicious shaking. "Because I assure you I AM!"

No wonder the luminous form on the newscast had seemed so familiar. "Uh – can't we let bygones be bygones? You know, forgive and forget and all that –"

The giant flung him against the wall, crossed the room with anomalous speed, glared down at him as a man regards a particularly loathsome insect. "Vhere ist Shego, Drakken? I vant to THANK her for throwing ze Matter-Energy Integrator out _vith_ me. Through studying its construction, I haff created zis integration suit, vhich not only can convert MATTER to ENERGY, but ENERGY TO MATTER AS VELL."

"So now you feed on energy. Just like in _Invasion of the Energy Vampires_."

"Ach, did you see zat too? Such a letdown. I haff seen _cartoons_ zat vere better. So vhere ist your concubine? Vhere ist Shego?"

Drakken's expression darkened. "She isn't my _concubine_. And you'll never lay a finger on her if I can help it."

"Ah, but you CAN'T help it. You can't do ANYTHINK to stop me." The huge man held up an electronic disc; a holographic diagram of the lair appeared in the air before them. "Since you vill not tell me about Shego," he sneered, "perhaps you vill show me around your lair. I am particularly intrigued by zis _secret shaft_ right _here_, vhich descends below ze range of my scanners." His eyes narrowed. "Vhat are you HIDING down there, Drakken?"

The blue man swallowed, hard. "N-n-nothing. Much. Nothing much."

"Zhen ve shall go LOOK at nothing much," said Dementor, shoving his captive toward the secret door. "I'm sure it vill be verrry interesting."


	6. Chapter 6

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Magnetic Fields, Zoolook, Equinoxe, Oxygene _and_ Oxygene 7-13_ by Jean-Michel Jarre'.

* * *

"So zhis is vhy you needed zat positronic colloid stuff so urgently." Dementor walked around the immense computer again, examining it in detail, hmming and hawing intermittently, listening with amusement to the gentle purring of the mighty positron globe at its apex. "It zounds like a kitten. Ze globe resonates vith ze positronic currents, ja?"

Drakken sullenly nodded his head. He had been tied securely to the chair usually in front of the readout terminal.

"It must ze awful racket make vhen it is, shall ve zay, 'agitated'."

"Terrible. In fact, you really don't want to be down here if that starts. Maybe we could go back up, I could make some cocoa-moo –"

"Vhere did you steal it? Military installation? Cyrus Bortel's lab? Area 51?"

"I didn't steal it anywhere."

"Zhen your _sidekick_ stole it _for_ you."

"No." Even under these conditions, Drakken's voice held a note of pride. "It's my invention. My very first invention. My _best_ invention. Ever. "

"You built it?" Dementor fixed him with a disbelieving glare. "So vhere ist ze _rest_ of it?"

"I – I don't know what you mean. It's just a computer. A toy, really. Nothing to get your shorts in a knot about—"

"Do not ze GAMES play vith me! I am a REAL SCIENTIST, not a thieving fraud."

"Sticks and stones may break my bones –"

"Shut up ze MOUTH! Even zhese patch-bay labels give it avay: _Upper Lumbar Region. Lower Lumbar Region. Tactile Function. Optics. Weapon Systems. _Und zhis tesseract transmitter. A perpetual wireless connexion. It could be on ze other zide of ze GALAXY and still be in contact vith its body."

"Its _what_?"

Dementor backhanded him. "I told you I haff not ze PATIENCE for ze GAMES! Zhis is ze brain of a mobile robotic organism. So I ask you again: vhere is ze REST OF IT?"

Dr. D. did not answer.

"_Geh zum die Teufel_," growled the giant. "I'll find out myself." The huge fingers laboriously fumbled out a command on the readout terminal, only to receive the message "ACCESS DENIED." He tried another command, and another, and still another, always with the same results.

The purring of the positron globe had become a complex buzz, a hundred nests of angry hornets.

"You _vill_ give me ze access codes, Drakken," Dementor commanded. "Its inner vorkings I vant to see. Its secrets I vant to learn."

Drakken laughed mirthlessly. "Even if I gave you those codes, you couldn't learn _that_ machine's secrets. It's unique. An accident of creation." Another laugh and a shrug. "Its secrets are its own, believe me."

"Zhen I vill simply DESTROY it." The massive fist tapped the positron globe, jarring the whole structure. "If I break zhis glass, your cherished, _vunderbar_ invention is NOT."

"_Don't_!" It was almost a scream.

It was Dementor's turn to laugh. "Give me ze access codes, and I vill maybe spare it. As a trophy, perhaps. Or maybe it vill vork for _me_, once I see the REST OF IT."

"No. It won't. It can't be reprogrammed. You'd destroy its personality vectors."

"Robots _need_ no personality. You should know zhat."

"Why are you doing this? Don't you have bigger fish to fry? Like, oh, I don't know, a _world to conquer_ or something?"

"Oh, I haff every intention of owning ze vorld, absolutely. But first, an EXAMPLE must be MADE." He leaned down to bellow in Drakken's face; the blue man squirmed, but couldn't quite get out of the line of fire. "I vant ze VORLD TO KNOW vhat HAPPENS to ANYONE WHO BETRAYS PROFESSOR DEMENTOR!"

"What _does_ happen to anyone who betrays Professor Dementor?" a familiar feminine voice snidely asked. "Free chimmeritos at Bueno Nacho? Year's subscription to _Humans_ magazine? Enquiring minds want to know."

"_Shego_?" Drakken exclaimed.

The harlequin woman stood in the turbolift, an evil smile on her face. "Oh yeah, you don't like to be reminded of Bueno Nacho. Sorry about that." She sized up the colossus before her with a critical eye. "Steroids aren't good for you, Dementia."

"Dementor! My name ist DEMENTOR!"

"Shego, get out of here," begged the blue man. "Please, for once, just do what I say. I can handle this."

Her laugh rippled through the room. "Yeah, you're doing a great job so far."

"You're supposed to be on _vacation_!"

"I just felt like something was wrong. Call it intuition. So I turned the jet around and came back. And, yeah, you've got some trouble." She raised her hands; emerald light flickered on the titanium walls. "Nothin' I can't handle." She faced Dementor, every muscle in her body tensed for action. "How'd you survive the fall, Nutzi?"

"Jet boots. I am ready for EVERY EVENTUALITY."

"Jet boots." She shook her head in mock dismay. "You know, I should have seen that coming, but I was having a hard time focusing that day. Having a screaming Bavarian midget underfoot can do that. Well, I don't have a zeppelin to throw you from this time, Prof. When this is over, you'll wish I did."

"Is zhat so," he said, watching not Shego, but the giant computer. Watching the readouts change, the lights flash, the gauges move. The light of an astounding revelation dawning in his eyes. "And vhat are you going to _do_ to me, Shego?"

"I'm going to kick your Bavarian – hey, Prof, I'm over _here_."

"I… don't think… you _are_." A malicious smirk stole over his blunt features. "I congratulate you, Doctor Drakken. All zhese years, und I haff had no idea. No vun has."

"What's he on about, Dr. D?" asked the green woman, her hands still blazing with green flames. "'Idea' about _what_?"

Dementor guffawed. "Even _it_ does not know! Very goot, Herr Doctor! Duplicity is an excellent trait for a supervillain!" Contemplating Shego's confusion, he began to laugh again. "Look at its face. It does not understand. _Zhis_ is entertainment."

"_It_?" Shego spluttered. "I'm not an 'it', you little lunatic."

"LITTLE?" Dementor roared. "I am EXACTLY 3.048 METERS TALL!"

"You're still just a puny little man. Come _on_, then_, bring it_, if you've got anything to bring."

Without warning, the giant moved, but not to attack Shego; seizing a group of cables on the side of the computer, he ripped them from the _Weapon Systems _patch bay.

Shego's plasma was instantly extinguished; the angry hum of the positron globe became a howl of anguish. The young woman stared at her powerless hands, astonished. "What th—"

"_No_!" shrieked Drakken, straining at his bonds. "Don't hurt her. Please, Dementor. Take it out on me. Let her go."

"You zhould haff thought of ZHAT before you let it THROW ME FROM ZE ZEPPELIN," he jeered. "Come on, zhen, Shego. Show ME vhat YOU'VE got!" Almost faster than the eye could follow, he yanked out another set of patch cords; the green harlequin crumpled to the floor.

"My legs – I can't feel my _legs_—"she gasped, but neither Drakken nor Dementor heard her over the howling feedback of the violated positronic brain.

The mad Bavarian coldly watched her writhe. "I had planned," he said to Drakken, " to tear her apart before you, vun limb at a time. But zhis, oh, zhis is _zo_ much better." The giant lifted the chair and its occupant, set it down in front of the struggling woman. "Tell it goodbye, Doctor," he gloated, "und zhen I destroy it forever."

"So _that's_ what that machine does," Shego sobbed, tears of anger and betrayal rolling down her cheeks. "_That's_ why you built it. To _control_ me."

Drakken was horrified. "No! No, Shego, it's not like that. That's not it at all. It's –"

"I haven't forgotten the _compliance chip._" She was still vainly struggling to stand. "You've _always_ wanted to control me. Ever since we teamed up."

"Compliance chip?" _Another false memory_, he realized. "That didn't happen. It was a Fearless Ferret episode. The one with the Obedience Disc."

She stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. Oblivious, he continued his plea.

"Brainstorm's Obedience Disc. _Fearless Ferret,_ episode 53. It didn't really happen. _Please_ believe me, honey. It didn't really _happen_!"

Her anger and fear were swept aside by surprise. "What did you – _call me_?"

"Say _gute nacht_, Gracie," Dementor interrupted, and swung with all his monstrous strength at the lightning-filled, screeching glass globe.

A grappling hook shot through the air, the cable winding itself around the giant's legs; a powerful tug tumbled the behemoth, his fist swinging harmlessly through the air as he fell with a crash.

"I don't know what that is," said Kim Possible, standing on an overhead catwalk, an opened air vent in the wall behind her, "but if you want it broken, _I_ want it whole."

"_You_." The giant's face was a mask of hatred; his huge hands seized the cable, snapped it like thread. "Ever since I learned you had survived, I knew zis moment vould come. But I did not expect it here."

"I'm full of surprises."

"Zhey VILL NOT help you HERE."

Confident and unafraid, Kim faced the behemoth. "You know you can't win, Dementor. Why not just go quietly?"

"Professor Dementor does NOTHINK QUIETLY," he roared. From his outstretched hand thundered a sizzling ball of pure energy. Kim dodged, spun, reached out with the Battlesuit's hand scoop to intercept the power and fling it back at the maniac that had released it.

The explosion left her stunned, sprawled on the floor.

That energy burst had cost Dementor nearly a foot in height, but he was still gigantic. His huge boot came down, aimed at her head; she rolled, tried to cartwheel and fell.

It was difficult to cartwheel with a missing hand. She stared at the stump in horror.

"I vill cut you to HAMBURGER," screamed Dementor, but before he could unleash another blast, a figure leaped from the air vent, surrounded by azure energy. Defying gravity, Ron spun in midair, seized the giant and flung him across the room, barely missing the positronic brain, to slam into the titanium wall.

"Got lost in the ductwork, KP," he shouted. "You all right?"

The blue aura of retro-metabolism had just faded from her regenerated hand. She flexed the fingers. "You bet."

"Then let's finish this – _awp_!"

With the unnatural speed he possessed, Dementor had lunged forward, seized Ron by the leg as he hovered there. "I am SMARTER than ze LORWARDIANS, Monkey Master. " Waves of unknown force began emanating from the giant, aimed now at the young man, tearing the energy of ch'i from his body as easily as they had torn electricity from the Navarez dynamos.

Now at least fifteen feet tall, the madman let the unconscious body drop to the floor. "Such power," the monster scoffed, just before Kim kicked him in the face. A huge tooth went flying through the air, but the Professor had little time to mourn it. Kim was an avenging dervish, a hurricane of super-speed kicks and punches, a distaff David pummeling a Goliath of super-science. There was no time for banter. She had to end this quickly.

Both Drakken and his stricken creation stared in astonishment as the young woman drew on the strength and reflexes of her Hydraian heritage, buffeting the behemoth scientist without mercy, dodging his frantic energy blasts with her Earth-born cheerleading skills without ever letting up on the attack.

"_Get_ him, Possible!" shouted Dr. D, hardly believing what he heard himself saying. "Let him _have_ it!"

"ENOUGH!" bawled Dementor, and the unknown force came into play, coruscating through the air, snaring Kim in its intangible web. Valiantly she struggled against the evil power, to no avail; her strength exhausted, she fell to her knees, drenched in sweat.

"He… he's _winning_," whimpered Shego, unable to accept what was happening before her eyes, unable to stand and change it. "_No_."

Dementor towered over his fallen red-haired foe in triumph. "An ALLEY CAT haff fewer lives than you, but I zhall DRAIN EVERY LAST VUN OF THEM!"

Suddenly the blue glow of retro-metabolism flared wildly around her, was sucked into the diabolical vortex. Both Kim and the scientist were limned in its eerie light.

"Vat is ZHIS?" said Dementor in awe. "I can feel it – my vounds, zey are _healed_ – my strength, my youth, zey are RETURNED TO ME! So ZHIS is how you survived my crack shots. ZHIS is how you haff defeated me, all zhese years. Und now zat power... IT IS MINE!" He laughed, revealing a full set of teeth. "So many secrets. It has BEEN a DAY of REVELATIONS."

Kim felt her heart fluttering, the breath catching in her throat, and realized, dazedly, what was happening.

"My matter/energy integrator suit is consuming your lifeforce, Fraulein Possible. Your regenerative power cannot keep up with it, und your spring-stepping, self-healing Battlesuit is zo much yesterday's news." He grabbed her by the throat, lifted her into the air, pleased with her weak, strangled struggles as the energy-absorbing waves continued to leach away her life. "I haff calculated every element. Zhis vill be our _last_ encounter. NOW, Kim Possible – _YOU DIE!_"


	7. Chapter 7

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Mastermind III: Tragic Symphony _by Mastermind, _Neverwas_, score by Philip Glass.

* * *

World-renowned neurosurgeon Anne Possible of Middleton, Colorado, who had once been intergalactic scout K'myrii K'alorn of Amryl in the Fifteenth Facet, stood outside her home, under the starry sky, deep in thought. Considering the days, the years, the light-years that had brought her to this place. Wondering.

"Can't sleep, hon?" Her husband stood beside her in the night.

"I – I'm worried, Jim. She checked herself out of the hospital. You know she's gone after Dementor. Without a word to us."

"Well, our little girl's a grown woman now – it's not like she needs our permission or anything." _Not that she ever asked for it anyway_, he thought. _We were always on the outside of her missions, looking in._ Memories of Drakken's brain-tap machine and Dementor's lethal acid pool flared up, reminding him of the reason Kim had never brought her crime-fighting career home. On the rare occasion the family did get involved, they had nearly always come to grief. "She'll be fine, Anne."

"On Hydraia she would be dedicating herself to solving one mystery, removing one obstacle, revealing one glory that had eluded the study of those with a normal lifespan. It's how we progress. The ones with her gift lead us. They teach each other as well. The wisdom of centuries, handed down on a personal level –" The woman frowned. "She's been avoiding me, you know."

"I know."

"Do you know _why_?"

"I think so." Stars twinkled in nocturnal silence, broken only by the faint sound of a distant train. "You're not going to like it."

"_I_ haven't changed. I'm the same person I was before."

"Not to Kim. One day you were born in Kalamazoo and raised in a little Michigan town called Augusta, not far from Battle Creek. You left there to go to Upperton University in Colorado, and that's how we met. The next day you were an alien castaway from a planet orbiting Aldebaran, and I met you while dodging winged Plutonian space lobsters. That was a pretty big jump."

"Orbiting _Or'roa_." She purred the strange word. " Hydraia orbits Or'roa. 'Aldebaran' is a Terran _noise_. Barbaric."

"I remember you didn't care much for 'James Possible' the first time you heard it, either. 'Tuneless,' I believe you called it. 'Clunky.'"

Her hand found his. "It's sort of grown on me. Over the years."

He really wished he didn't have to spoil this moment. "We should have told the kids everything, a long time ago. The whole story. Your crash on Pluto, Harris' stupid practical joke –"

"I still think you're blaming Dr. Harris for something he didn't do."

"That doesn't matter. We should have spilled the beans. Told them all about it. If they'd grown up with it, instead of having it sprung on them –"

She was shocked. "We _couldn't_. You _know_ that." All her deepest fears rose up before her: the concentration camps of Area 51 and District 9, the murderously xenophobic clandestine organizations Spectrum and SHADO, ruthless collectors like Van Statten and Henry Parker. All the traps of Earth, lying in wait for the unwary traveler. "Children can't be trusted with secrets. Not even Hydraian children. They blurt things out. They –"

"Kim's not a child. She's been mature enough to handle the truth for a long time. Don't you think she would have handled the _gift_ a lot better if she had known her _heritage_?" He sadly shook his head. "It's my fault. I was afraid they'd fumble the ball, and I filled you with those worries. Now Kim's had enough run-ins with aliens to distrust them. The Lorwardians, the Septenant –"

"What?" There was disbelief in her eyes. "I'm not Warmonga. I'm not one of the Septenant. I'm her _mother_! She doesn't –"

"I told you that you wouldn't like it."

"I'm sorry, Jim. I - I just can't believe it. The boys aren't having any problem with it. They think it's great."

"Of course they do. They cut their teeth on rockets, robots and science fiction. They're the ones who watched _Captain Constellation_ with me, not Kim. She hated the show. Remember? I couldn't even _subliminally_ convince her to like it for long." As usual, he felt uncomfortable about trying that. It was one of the very, very few real betrayals of his position as Kim's father. He feared that keeping her mother's identity a secret had been another. Stifling the guilt, he continued. "Having an alien mom is almost an _epiphany_ for our sons."

"Ah – Earth to James Possible," she said, slightly annoyed by the irony of that exclamation. "I'm talking about _real life_, not old television shows."

"So am I, K'myrii." She was startled; he very rarely used her real name. "What was the first thing Kim asked you? When she finally realized we weren't putting her on?"

"How I got to Pluto."

"No. After that. After you told her about your mission. Searching for habitable planets."

Immediately she recalled Kim's horrified expression, the question she'd exclaimed: _"You were – invading Earth?" _

At the time, it struck her as almost funny. Now it wasn't amusing at all.

She turned on her husband, an angry edge in her voice. "You're _wrong_. She's my _daughter_. I've watched her grow up. I've _been_ there for her. When all she could get out of _you_ was drivel about a _cybertronic rodent monster_, I was _there_ for her."

His response remained even, measured. Reasonable. "Pinky Jo Curlytail was more than just a monster. The little guy had spirit. And I don't appreciate the _blast_, thank you."

Remorse swept her anger aside. "But I _admitted_ we should have _told_ her. I _admitted_ it. I _told_ her I was sorry. For keeping it secret. I – I – Jim, what have I done? What have _we_ done?" Her eyes were filled with tears. "What if she doesn't come back?"

"She will. She's your daughter. And she's a Possible. A hundred Professor Dementors couldn't stop her." _Please let that be true_, he silently prayed, not knowing if there was anyone or anything out there to hear the prayer. As if in answer, a narrow arc of light stretched across the night sky. "A falling star," he said, gently.

Together they watched its silent course, in silence they made their wish.

The falling star continued to fall.

* * *

Dementor was still screaming his taunts of victory, but the dying young woman in his clutches could no longer hear them as words. They were just a muffled roar, a sound from a world she was leaving. Even retro-metabolism was failing her, its healing virtue drained off by Dementor's integrator suit before it could restore her strangled, suffocated cells. Still she flailed and kicked weakly in the behemoth's grip, barely clinging to consciousness, knowing only that she had to keep fighting. For the world. For Ron.

For her family. The tweebs. Her dad.

Her mom.

Suddenly there was a formless flare of green light and the crushing grip was gone. She fell to the floor, coughing, choking, but able to breathe. Laid there, gasping, the blue light of her gift growing from a weak flicker to a bright blue flame, and knew her strength was coming back to her, her senses were slowly returning. And the first words she heard and understood were not Dementor's, but another voice she knew very well. A voice insane with rage and pain. And what it screamed was this:

"You _can't_ kill Kimmie. I won't _let_ you. That's _my_ job. Mine. Mine. _Mine!_"

Shego leaped on her fallen enemy, her claws slashing at his face. "Wouldn't you rather have the plasma?" she snarled.

The Bavarian scientist howled in agony.

She was a war machine, battering the giant unmercifully. Now the plasma fire flared again around her hands as she continued her brutal attack. "I don't know what you thought you did to me, but it didn't work. It _couldn't_ work. If _anyone_ ever kills Kim Possible, it'll be me. Me. _ME_!"

Pinned down despite his size advantage, Dementor gaped at the massive computer in astonishment. Crackling electrical arcs had bridged the torn cables on the massive electronic brain. Its storm-filled positron globe rumbled like a captive tornado; every meter on the device was pegged in the red. The access terminal's monitor flashed two words, over and over: OVERLOAD IMMINENT.

None of that meant anything to the emerald harlequin. She glared at the fallen giant, ignoring the waves of pain that were sweeping through her, and continued her devastating attack. "I was _born_ to kill her." A bone-breaking kick. "_Born_ to it." A shattering uppercut. "I won't _rest_ until I see Kim Possible _dead_." Plasma blasts brought a tormented roar from her adversary. "And when I'm done with _you_, that _machine_, whatever it is, is next – next – next," she stammered uncontrollably.

"_Shego_ –" Dr. D. began, fearing that his creation was disintegrating before his eyes.

"_Shut up_!" she shrieked, turning her attention from Dementor to glare at the man in the chair. "You built that to _control_ me, but I can't _be_ controlled." The smell of ozone and overheated circuitry filled the room. "I can't _be_ commanded_. I can't be _ –" Without warning the giant seized her, flung her across the room with all his might. She smashed into the wall, almost blacking out; deep within the computer something burst in a flash of white light.

The green harlequin lurched to her feet, gritting her teeth, momentarily closing her eyes to the pain ripping through her head. She was staggering. "When we're done, that thing's a slag heap."

"You are being zo _wrong_, robot. Zat thing's a slag heap NOW." Once again moving much too quickly for his size, Dementor grabbed the green woman's hands at the wrists and with a fierce twist, wrenched them completely off, flung them across the room. Too horrified to scream, Shego could only stare, not understanding or believing what she saw. Dark red fluid spurted briefly amidst the sparks and wires; Drakken had designed her to appear to bleed if wounded. To further the illusion. To keep anyone from learning the truth.

Because he had learned that no one thought twice about destroying machines, so she had to be human. But now she wasn't, and the destruction had begun.

As she stared in shock, her gargantuan enemy spun her around, pinning her arms behind her back so brutally that both her costume and her synthomesh flesh ripped at the shoulders, exposing the solenoids within. She made a noise; not a whimper of pain, but a growl of defiance. Unconcerned, Dementor marched her toward the computer, still venting his rage. "LOOK AT IT, ROBOT. Zhat machine is YOU. Zhis BODY is nothing but a VALDO, a ZATELLITE; your MIND, your HEART, your SOUL if you HAVE ONE, is right zhere before you."

Her eyes met Drakken's; they saw desperation in each other's faces. "Is – is it _true_?" creation asked creator, her tone begging him to deny it. "Why – why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"Dementor, _please_," the blue man beseeched the colossus. "Have _pity_!"

If the madman heard, he gave no response. "Zat glass globe contains your memories und personality vectors, robot. If it is destroyed, even replacing it vill never bring you back. OBLIVION vill take you, machine, ONCE UND FOR ALL. And vhen I RESTORE you, you vill MINDLESSLY serve ME as weapon und enforcer." He lifted her above his head, even as she struggled. "Vith your OWN BODY I DESTROY YOU, SHEGO! For _NONE_ may DEFY _PROFESSOR DEMENTOR_!"

Kim was finally able to stand; beyond the mammoth maniac she saw Ron dully shaking his head, slowly coming around.

"_Do something_!" Drakken implored them, but neither could act quickly enough to stop Dementor's next simple, savage act.

With all his monstrous strength he flung Shego at the globe.


	8. Chapter 8

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: _Horror Show _by Iced Earth; _Felicite Thosz _by Magma; _In Search of Space_ and _Space Ritual_ by Hawkwind.

* * *

Kim closed her eyes, almost involuntarily threw her hands up, unable, unwilling to watch the end. She didn't understand all that had just transpired, but she was sure of two things: unbelievable as it might seem, that was the real Shego, not a robot duplicate, and she had been completely unaware of her true nature. _Another victim of family secrets._ The thought enraged and sickened her. She knew Drakken was capable of practically anything, but keeping something like that from Shego was monstrous. Unthinkable.

No one should have to live without knowing their heritage.

All that flashed through Kim's mind in the split-second before the green woman struck the fragile glass globe, smashing it into a billion glittering shards, spilling the eerie, precious substance within, erasing, eliminating, destroying –

She realized that the crash hadn't come, except in her imagination. Instead Dementor broke the tense silence, spat something in German: "Was die SAM HILL ist da los?"

Cautiously she peered out between her fingers, almost afraid of what she might see, and stood astonished.

Seemingly unconscious, Shego hovered in the air, surrounded by blue light, no more than an inch from the globe. The positronic brain had also shut down almost entirely, either from damage or survival protocols. Slowly the crippled harlequin spun around, perhaps moved by air currents, sparks still crackling from her torn shoulders and the wires dangling from her wrists.

Kim knew immediately what had happened, shot a quick glance of thanks to Ron. During the Lorwardian battle, Ron's _tai sheng pek kwar_ had defied gravity, lifted giant attack pods into the air to send them crashing down with terrible force around the alien invaders. Catching Shego with that power must have been child's play. _His studies at Yamanouchi are making a difference_, she thought. _There was a time that he'd still be trying to tie his shoelace or something._

She turned to face Dementor; a second later Ron finished tying his shoe and stood by her. "OK, let's finish this, then," she said, knowing as she said it that she had absolutely nothing to back it up. Fear was a black hole within her, consuming everything, but she refused to let her enemy know it.

"You still persist?" The evil colossus grinned, unimpressed by Kim's bravado. "Fine. Zis time zhere shall be NO INTERRUPTIONS vhile I DRAW ZE LIFE FROM YOU BOTH."

"Don't touch her," said a voice. "That's my _daughter_, you monster."

Dementor whipped around to face the woman standing in the turbolift doorway. "Ist everyone on ze PLANET coming to zis party?" He snorted in disgust. "Vith ze power of MATTER-ENERGY INTEGRATION I can NOT BE DEFEATED! Least of all by a MIDDLE-AGED BRAIN SURGEON vith IDEAS ABOVE her STATION!" The waves of force began their sinister coruscation around the giant. "Very vell, zhen, I vill CONSUME ALL OF YOU! Face ze full fury of PROFESSOR DEMENTOR!"

Kim's mother said something in a language none of them knew, more a song than a statement. In response another woman stepped out of the turbolift, red-haired, green-eyed, wearing a jet-black uniform with an alien symbol in red above her left breast. Behind them three others waited, all red-haired, all similarly clad. Whoever the stranger was, she was unafraid of the behemoth before her; she assumed a battle stance, hands above her head. Poised. Waiting.

Kim and Ron slowly stepped back, realizing this was no longer their fight, to stand beside Drakken, who was still tied to his chair. Worse, he was facing away from the combatants. "What's going on?" howled the blue man, craning his neck in vain. "Who's here? What's happening?"

Neither crimefighter had answers to those questions, so they continued to watch in silence as the battle began.

With a snarl, Dementor loosed his energy-absorbing power on the stranger; she caught the field with her bare hands as blinding arcs crackled through the air, swirled it around and flung it back at Dementor with devastating effect. There was an explosion of sparks from the backpack he wore; he staggered back, swore in German and intensified the blast. Both the mad scientist and the woman were ensnared in the evil energy, neither daring to let up. Sweat beaded on the woman's brow as she cast the force back at the crazed Bavarian, who raised the power another notch.

" You cannot vin, Fraulein," jeered the giant. "For me, zhere is only victory – or DEATH!" He increased the power still further; circuits began to glow red throughout his integrator suit. The whole underground room shook with the violence of raw, unleashed energy. "Whoever you are," bellowed the Professor, "you vill PAY FOR YOUR INTERFERENCE!"

"Whatever they're doing, make them _stop_," shouted Drakken over the roar, as the chair jittered across the floor. "The shaft can't take this abuse! They'll bring it down on us all!"

But there was no respite for the fighters, both approaching their limit, both realizing that whoever broke first would lose this battle and everything else.

Kim picked something up off the floor. One of Shego's robotic hands, its talons sharpened.

The stranger cried out, stumbled under the strain; Dementor stepped forward, his power bringing the woman to her knees. The integrator suit was smoldering, but his eyes shone with the mad light of triumph. And Kim knew what she had to do.

Like a panther she leaped onto the madman's back, into the diabolical forcefield that surrounded him. The power ravaged her body like acid, searing every cell, instantly draining her life and vitality, but with all the strength she had she drove the talons of the hand into the backpack, pulled up on it, slicing through the delicate circuitry it contained even as she fell, frail and broken, from her perch. The blue flare of retro-metabolism swept over her, but through the hazy glow she saw Dementor flailing, shrinking, light flaring from the backpack, streaming out in all directions.

"Nein, NEIN!" cried the translucent, still shrinking scientist, staring at the blinding beams now radiating from _him_ as the damaged integration field turned in on itself. "Zis cannot be HAPPENING! I am PROFESSOR DEMENTOR! I – am ze MASTER— of ze UNIVERSE –" With a final flash and a crack of thunder, he disappeared.

There was silence.

"Is he –" Ron began, and knew that he was. The menace of the Professor was no more.

Kim's mother was beside her, helping her up. "Are you all right?"

"Mom, how'd – how'd you find us? Who are these people?" she asked, though in her heart she already knew the answer.

"They've been looking for me a long time, Kim. Earlier tonight they found me. The same device that tracked me down found you."

One of the women joined them. "I am Yammith Sh'anai of Hydraian rescue mission PXR-5. We are… pleased to meet you, Kimberly Possible."

Kim smiled. "Block comprehension, right?"

Kim's mother nodded. "Yammith is both commander and ambassador." She indicated the woman who had fought Dementor. "Than'ara can handle and manipulate various forms of energy."

"Yeah, I sorta guessed that. Please and thank you, Than'ara."

The alien woman nodded, slightly.

"Where's Dad?" Kim asked.

"He stayed with the Tweebs. They all wanted to come, of course. But there's only so much room in the shuttlecraft. If we were going to get you and Ron back home, we couldn't bring them."

"I hate to interrupt this family reunion, or whatever it is," whined Dr. Drakken, "but could one of you take a moment to untie me? And bring that, uh, robot down from there?"

"Oh, right. Ron, bring her down, will you?" Kim asked, as she loosed the blue man.

"I – I didn't put her up there," stammered the young man. "Dementor absorbed all my ch'i energy. It's only beginning to come back." The tubes and wires dangling from the green woman's wrists made him shudder. "That's – that's not the _real_ Shego, is it? "

"No, of course not," Drakken blurted, "it's, ah, it's a _duplicate_ I built." He wasn't sure if anyone was buying that line, but he pressed on regardless. No one must learn the truth. Least of all Shego herself. "You, ah, you mustn't _tell_ her about it. She won't let me _clone_ her, but she didn't say anything about robot duplicates. It's, uh, it's not as good as the original, but it's getting there."

"Yeah," Ron nodded, his gaze still fixed on the unconscious, hovering figure, "Dementor would have never beaten the _real_ Shego."

Dr. D. seized the moment. "Right. See, the buffoon understands. Do all the _rest_ of you understand? Dementor couldn't beat the real Shego. The robot's not as good as the real thing."

"So why do you have it?" Kim asked, dryly. "Why not just another Bebe or something? Why a Shego-bot?"

"I don't know, just for my own _twisted amusement_! What kind of question is _that_?" Annoyed, he turned to Kim's mother for support. "Can't you _rein in_ your daughter? Does she have to pipe up with every random thought that runs through her head?"

"My daughter is a grown woman, Dr. Drakken. She has a right to say what she thinks."

"Well, let her say it somewhere else. We're, uh, we're running out of time." He turned to the Hydraians, hands outstretched, imploring. "Which one of you has the antigravity touch? I need to fix that robot before, uh, before it _reboots_. Can't do much with her up there." A nervous grin. "She's not the Goodyear Blimp, you know."

Yammith Sh'anai exchanged some words with one of her group, spoke apologetically to Dr. D. "Ka'tnka has the gift of levitation, but she didn't use it. Does the robot itself have antigrav capabilities?"

"No, the _robot itself_ doesn't have _antigrav capabilities_," he testily snapped. "If it did, I'd just bring it down myself. OK, we've all had our fun with Dr. Drakken, now quit fooling around." He regarded the peacefully floating figure with something akin to panic. "Stop messing with me and bring her down. _Someone_ here did it. It didn't happen by itself."

"Kimmie," began Mrs. Dr. P, a strange understanding in her eyes, "why don't _you_ try?"

"What?"

"Just, uh, just imagine the robot coming down. Slowly. Safely."

"Why, Mom? That's not my… _gift_."

"Humor me."

She looked up at Shego, imagined her floating down to the ground, was not in the least surprised when nothing happened. "Mom, you know I can't –"

"No I don't, honey." Her mother was beside her, hand on her shoulder, voice gentle and calm, quiet, not much more than a whisper. "I don't know you 'can't.' Is anything possible for a Possible?"

"Of _course_, Mom, but –"

"Did you see the robot levitate?"

"Sure. I was right here…" She trailed off. "No. I didn't. I had my eyes closed. I couldn't watch. Mom, I don't think that _is_ a robot. Or _just_ a robot. I think it's really –"

"One thing at a time, Kimmie. Close your eyes again. Imagine her coming down. In that chair. Safe. You wanted her safe when you closed your eyes the first time, right?"

Kim didn't answer; eyes closed, she visualized the robot – no, she visualized the _woman_ drifting gently, a leaf on the wind, to come softly to rest in the chair that had held the man who was her creator. A man she would speak to, very shortly, about that very sitch.

There were cries of wonder from the Hydraians. One of them breathed something in their musical language, her voice hushed, reverent.

Kim's mother.

Kim opened her eyes, realized her life had just changed again. This time, though, she would deal with it. This time she would trust the one person in her life that could help her adjust to this new reality. The time for secrets and mysteries was past.

Yammith Sh'anai spoke to Mrs. Dr. P. in the language of their native planet. "K'myrii, that cannot be. We all saw the power of retro-metabolism save her life in the battle with the giant. It is the most blessed of all gifts, but no Hydraian has more than one. It is genetically impossible."

"She isn't a Hydraian," Anne Possible replied, still in the Hydraian tongue. "Her father is Terran. She is something new. Maybe everything we know is wrong. Maybe—" and she regarded her daughter with love and pride –"Maybe Kim is the future. Of both races."

"There must be tests. We must know how many of the gifts she has. She must come to our homeworld with you. She must –"

"Commander Sh'anai, I honor you and your position, but my daughter will decide for herself what she must do. As for myself, again I honor what you have done, but I am not returning to Hydraia."

"What? Unheard of. You would stay here on this backwater world?"

"I would stay here with my husband. With my family."

Dr. D, his face a snarl, posed a question to his red-haired nemesis. "Can you understand that canary song?"

"No. And it isn't 'canary song.' It's the language of their world." _A world with one language_, she thought. _How wonderful._

"How does your mother know it, then?"

"She's – she's been to college."

"College. Bah. Always it's college with you Possibles. Some minds are too far-reaching for such a regimen." The blue man growled, listening to the alien speech. "Who knows what conspiracies they're hatching? What secrets they're discussing? And in my house, too. Under my roof. Under my _floor_, truth to tell."

Ron broke in. "Not everyone is all about conspiracies and secrets, Drakken. Some people are open with each other. Some people have nothing to hide."

"That's what you think, monkey boy." Suddenly the sinister scientist had enough. "Hey, everybody. I've got things I have to do. Got a robot to work on. I'm sure we could all talk – in a language _I don't understand_ – for hours, but the party's over. Turbolift's to your right. Nice meeting you. Maybe we can do it again sometime." He walked to a bench, collected some equipment, put on goggles and began reattaching the robot's hands to its arms. "Or not."

"Come on, KP." Ron and the others were heading for the exit. "We've pulled his fat out of the fire. Again. Guess it's time to go."

"I'll be up in a moment." She waited till the turbolift doors had closed before she spoke to the blue man. "Dr. Drakken."

"Yes, what?" He didn't look up from his work. "Thanks for everything. Or do you want money for that now? College changes everything, doesn't it?"

"That's really her, isn't it. Shego. That's really Shego."

"No. It isn't. It's a robot. Didn't you _notice_? Shego's on vacation." He opened the robot's eyes, gazed into each with a strange cluster of lenses, nodded in satisfaction and turned his attention to the positronic brain. "If you're going to stand around, hand me that sonic screwdriver."

Puzzled, Kim examined the peculiar little device. "Where'd this come from?"

"Auction. The collection of a multimillionaire named Henry Van Statten. Lost his mind dabbling around with alien artifacts. Ever hear of him?"

"Just recently." _One less threat to Mom_, she thought. _And myself._ She passed Drakken the device; he took it without looking around and began disconnecting a fried circuit board. "She needs to know, Dr. Drakken."

"Who needs to know what? What are you saying?"

"I heard her. She almost destroyed that computer you're rebuilding. She thought it was hurting her somehow. If she had taken care of _it_ first, instead of Dementor, you wouldn't have a Shego to rebuild."

He dropped the sonic screwdriver; with a beep of finality it rolled under the big machine, but he made no effort to retrieve it. "You don't know what you're talking about. As usual, you think you're all that, but you're –"

"I'm not a teenager any more. You don't have to go over the same old lines with me. But you have to listen. She needs to know who she is. Tell her. Tell her everything. Don't erase her memories, don't invent some story, don't treat her like a child. She isn't a child. She's the wonderful invention of a brilliant man. Who loves her."

Drakken said nothing.

"I was on the Lorwardian ship when she came to rescue you. I saw how you responded. How she responded. She's a daughter to you, isn't she?"

"You need to leave now. Your buddies are waiting for you."

"Do you want her to find out the hard way? Do you want her to find out when she gets injured and sees what's within? Do you want her to find out when you're dead and gone, and can't be there for her, can't help her cope? Tell her. I'm leaving. _I'll_ never tell _anyone_. It's our secret. But _you_ need to let Shego in on it. If you love her. If you trust her. If you want her to be safe."

He had retrieved the sonic screwdriver, was intently working at the torn cables deep within the big machine. There were no more words.

Kim walked to the turbolift, stepped inside, and was gone.

* * *

Somewhere a phone rang; an irritated foreman picked it up, listened, yelled for one of his Strudelwerks flunkies. "_Myron_!" He handed the phone to the thin, ineffectual-looking man. "Some nut wants ya. Make it fast. We're catering that _Mittwoch aus Licht_ thing tonight. A thousand apple strudels!"

"Y'ello…this is Myron Norim, who's this?"

The voice that crackled over the receiver was immediately recognizable, to Myron's horror. He cringed from it as if expecting to be kicked. "MYRON! Zhis is PROFESSOR DEMENTOR. Due to an unforeseen accident, I once again" – there was a long pause –" need your help."

"Aww, do I have to? I'm lucky to have my job back after the prison term –"

"ZHAT vas your OWN FAULT, Myron! Because your COMPETENCE is NOT! You vere BORN to be a NINNY. Zhat is vhy someone must DIRECT you. Now listen. You must go to ze SECRET lair. Ze one in ze Pyrenees. Und you must fetch me ze Higgs Boson Germinator."

"Higgs Boson! Ooh, ooh, I know what that is! The particle that creates mass!" It had been in yesterday's crossword puzzle.

"Ja, ja! I haff need of it for ze REASSEMBLING of mine SELF from zis pure ENERGY."

"Energy?"

"Ja, Myron! Thanks to Kim Possible, und some of her_ freunds_, I am no more zhen a VOICE on ze PHONE LINES! It is all I can do to zis single call muster! An unexpected setback, to be sure…but vith your help, und ze Higgs Boson Germinator, I zhall ZOON ONCE AGAIN be ze MASTER of the –"

Myron Norim hung up with a strange smile on his long face. All night he smiled. Sometimes he even tittered a little, under his breath, as though laughing at a secret joke.

His co-workers ignored his behavior. They had a thousand strudels to bake. And everyone thought Myron was sort of weird, anyway.


	9. Chapter 9

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack: _Encore, Stratosfear _and _Sorcerer _by Tangerine Dream; _Frankenstein: The True Story, _score by Gil Melle.

* * *

The little pink car buzzed down the streets of Middleton, its rocket engines sheathed and grappling beams retracted, pretending to be just another vehicle. Sitting outside the Shop-A-Lot where she worked, Bonnie Rockwaller saw it go by, curled her lip in disdain. Kim was back in town, probably visiting her folks. Taking a break from college and saving the world and all that. Big deal. Possible always got all the breaks. But someday, Bonnie silently swore, she'd leave this stinking Shop-A-Lot behind, go to college, make something of herself. Then she'd show the world what a Rockwaller could do.

"Rockwaller!" It was Mr. Vishwajeet, General Manager. "You are doing _nothing_! Your break, it was over ten minutes ago! You are _never_ back on the time!"

"Oh, right, like people are breaking down the doors to shop here." She sipped the last of her bottled water, sighed miserably, stood up to go back to work, vaguely wishing Senor Senior Sr. hadn't finally disowned his son. Life had been a lot more fun before Junior lost his allowance. "This dump is worse than Smarty Mart."

"Then get a job at Smarty Mart!" raged Mr. Vishwajeet. "You are fired! Turn in your badge at the office." Without another word, he spun on his heel, stormed back into the shop.

Bonnie couldn't believe it. Third job in three months. Didn't anyone in Middleton appreciate good employees?

Things had been so much easier in high school.

She moped toward her car, still wearing the badge.

Kim hadn't even noticed Bonnie as she drove by the Shop-A-Lot. Her mind was on other matters. It had been weeks since Dementor's defeat, but there were still loose ends. And the pit of fear in her stomach seemed to open wider with every passing mile. Going to college had been scary, but nothing like this.

Things had been so much easier in high school.

She pulled into the driveway, noticing how much nicer the new house was. When the Lorwardians had nearly destroyed Middleton, the Possibles had been the only family in town with alien invasion insurance. _Mom's from another world and Dad got chased across Pluto by flying space lobsters, _she thought._ No wonder we had that covered. _

The only thing that would have paid more was the comet insurance policy. The whole family really hoped they never had to use it.

"Kimmie!" came the cheerful greeting. Her mother was, as usual, juggling a phone with one hand and a bag of groceries with the other; the egg carton slid from the bag, popped open, and stopped three inches from the floor, surrounded by blue light.

"Listen," Mrs. Dr. P. told the phone, "I've got to get off here. My daughter's in for a visit." A pause. "The temporoparietal junction, I'm sure. I'll be in tomorrow and we'll see about it." She pocketed the phone, reached down to retrieve the hovering eggs and their container. "Thanks, honey. I've got enough messes going on without adding this to the pile. Dr. Scullimitus doesn't know a Syvian fissure from a hole in the ground."

"No big." She hesitated, trying to decide how to say it, and finally just began. Some things defied finesse. "Mom, I've been thinking… call Commander Sh'anai or whoever you have to call. I'm – I'm going with them. Back to Hydraia. For that training."

An egg hit the floor, shattered to bits.

* * *

For once, Drakken was pleased with the way things were going. Much as he hated to admit it, it looked like Kim Possible might have been right. For weeks he'd been unable to get the young woman's warning out of his head: "…_you__ need to let Shego in on it. If you love her. If you trust her. If you want her to be safe."_

Finally he'd decided to try it.

This time, though, he'd prepared for trouble. Remembering what happened the last time his creation discovered her true nature, he'd put a time lock on the turbolift. Twenty-four hours. Even if she smashed the door open, the lift would not descend; there was no way for her to get to the positronic brain deep underground.

Once that was done, he'd broken the news to her. There'd been some emotion, of course. He'd expected that. Some shouting and denying and plasma throwing. He'd been ready for that, too. More or less. He regretted what had happened to the Brancusi sculpture, but you couldn't make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Now it looked like the worst was over. At least she wasn't running amok, desperately trying to prove her humanity. At least she wasn't going crazy this time.

So far.

"No, please, _no_." Shego glanced at her own reflection, uncomfortably watched the woman on the tv screen mug and gawk and mutter monosyllabic gibberish. "_Tell_ me you didn't model me after _her_."

"But I did," announced her creator. "She's a very fine comedienne. Not unlike Lucille Ball, say, or Gracie Allen. Mother used to watch reruns of _I Love Lucy_ when I was very young. And Burns and Allen just never get old."

"Who?"

"After _Cracked TV_, she went on to do many bit parts in many unsuccessful series, and quite a few voices in cartoon shows, like –"

"She's an _idiot_. Why is she standing like that? It looks stupid." The Synthetic Humanoid Electronic Girl Operative V.1.0 watched the screen with something approaching horror. She hadn't been this shaken when Drakken had told her how to open the repair access in her stomach. "She can't even make a simple _sign_. 'Buy one pizza, get one free.' Is _that_ so hard? Anyone could do it."

"That's the point. It's an _act_, Shego. She's being _funny_."

She grimaced. "Is that what you call it?"

"_Cracked TV_ was a masterpiece. Very underrated. Much better than_ Saturday Night Jive_." He chuckled, watching the onscreen antics, as the comedienne's frazzled boss tried one more time to explain the sign he wanted.

"'Buy one, get the second free,'" the boss recited. "Say that back to me."

"Buy… one, get… the… second… free," simpered the woman, the first real words she'd said in the sketch. The world howled with laughter.

Shego cringed. "You even gave me her _voice_." She put her hand to her throat, looking vaguely stunned. "Listen. I've got her _voice_."

"You sure do. It took a long time to tune you to that pitch."

The green woman did a facepalm, groaned.

Drakken was dazzled by sudden inspiration. "Say, do you think you could _do_ that routine? Here, I'll be the boss, and you can be the employee. Wouldn't that be fun?"

Shego regarded him as a hawk regards a hare. "Can you do _third-degree plasma burns_? I'll be the burn-_er_, and you can be the burn-_ee_. Wouldn't _that_ be fun?"

"Everything's always a _threat_ with you, isn't it?" her creator grumbled. "Can't you, for once, just go along with me? Would that be so difficult? Is it too much to ask?"

Appalled by the moronic conclusion of the _Cracked TV_ skit, the beautiful gynoid couldn't form an answer.

* * *

"Honey," began Mrs. Dr. P, tossing broken eggshell and soggy napkin into the trash, "I know it's a lot to ask. You might be there a year. A _Hydraian_ year. Are you sure about this?"

"I'll be honest, Mom – it's the most difficult decision I've ever made. But every day there are changes. I've got to get control of all this."

"You're not doing badly with levitation, I see."

"You know I could do better. And there are other things."

"Like what?"

"The other night Ron was watching a documentary on some sort of cheese they love in Germany. It's called Weisslacker. They ripen it in dark Bavarian beer."

"Sounds like something Dementor would come up with." The diminutive scientist had not been seen since his defeat; if he had somehow survived the incident, he hadn't returned to gloat about it.

"I'll say."

"And Ron was watching this – because?"

"Don't ask me. He said he was thinking about making some. Or trying some. I'm not sure. It was sorta confusing."

Her mother laughed. "So it was a _Ron_ something."

"Yeah, definitely a Ron something. Anyway, it was in German with English subtitles. I watched it because he wanted to. By the time it was over, I didn't need the subtitles. Block comprehension."

"Oh, that's _wonderful_. This opens a whole new _world_ of possibilities. Not just for Hydraia. Earth is full of stories of people with magic powers, special talents, psychic energies. Maybe, with the proper genetic manipulation, the people of both planets could –"

Somewhat distressed, Kim interrupted her. "Mom…you're doing it again."

"Huh? Right. Sorry, honey. I know we talked about that. Sorry."

"I know. I wish it didn't bother me. Maybe we both need to change a little." A pause. "Maybe some time on Hydraia will fix it."

"Kimmie – have you talked to Ron about that?"

"He says it's my decision. He says –" A tear rolled unbidden down her cheek, a lump formed unexpectedly in her throat. "He says, if he can't come with me, he'll wait for me."

Her mother's eyes teared up as well. "I always knew he was the one," she said quietly, more to herself than to her daughter.

A second later they embraced.

* * *

Ignoring her inventor, Shego ran her fingers through her hair, watched it in the mirror as if it might become snakes. "At least I'm not a _blonde_. Like _her_. At least you were _that_ creative."

" '_At least you were that creative_,' " Drakken repeated angrily. "I created the most human fembot ever – uh- created. Doesn't that count for _something_? You could have been a Bebe. You could have been a synthodrone. Look at you. What if you do have _her_ face and voice? You're more than a machine. You're a human being, Shego. I, _Dr. Drakken_, have constructed a _human being_."

She seemed unimpressed. "I'm a human being. Sure. You bet. I'm a human being with a bellyful of cybertronic circuitry, whose brain is buried three miles below the surface of the earth, whose face and voice are modeled on a mental case –"

"_Talented comedienne_!"

"Whose past is derived from –" she swallowed, almost unable to say the words "—_Fearless Ferret_ episodes."

"My bad." Dr. D's outrage became a sheepish, apologetic scowl. "I didn't realize you couldn't distinguish fantasy from reality at the time. And then, when you did attain sentience, I didn't dare tamper with the data. I might have lobotomized you."

"I'd like to rewind to this morning. I was a lot happier then. The sun was out and the sky was blue and everything was right with the world. So let me get this straight – Team Go? Go Tower?"

"Don't exist. Your distorted memories of the Ferret's fellow superheroes Spectrum Supreme."

"So there are no superhero brothers?"

"None."

"Good. They were unbearable anyway."

"The rainbow comet business came from that episode, too. Would you like to watch it? I have it right over there."

"No you don't. I melted those discs down ages ago. When we got back with the Suspended Positron Colloid."

"_Shego_!"

"What about Aviarius?"

"Who?"

"The master of birds. And Electronique, the electrical villainess."

He had to put his anger on hold. "More _FF_ characters. The Black Budgie. Ohm Ampere."

She closed her eyes, rubbed her temples as if enduring the mother of all headaches. "So Electronique never modified the Attitudinator to change people's morality. Because there never was an Electronique. It's all just confused data. Cross-linked files."

"The Attitudinator was Jack Hench's baby. _I_ had a little trouble with it, I recall, but even if someone had _tried_ to use it on you, it wouldn't have worked. You're thinking of Ohm Ampere's Moral Polarity Inverter in _FF_'s second season premiere, _Revenge on the Rainbow Renegade._ A classic. We could watch it if you hadn't _melted the discs_."

She stood up, her eyes still closed. "That means I was… never… a _good guy_. And _that_ means… I never fled Team Go. Because, good or evil, there isn't a Team Go. And there never was." Her brow was knit; she spoke like a child trying to recall a difficult lesson. "And if I never fled Team Go, that means I never stayed at _her_ house. We were never _friends_. No photos at the photo booth. No movies together. That whole experience is just cross-linked files. Confused data. Delete. Erase. Defragment. Run checksum routines."

Drakken felt the first twinges of alarm. More than one robot on the old TV show _Space Passage_ had begun to sound like this right before the meltdown. Commander Kane's clever logical paradoxes were death to automatons. "Shego, why don't you sit back down? I always think, uh, more _clearly_ if I'm sitting down. In fact, my favorite "thinking stool" is the –"

"And _that_ means... I've been deceived. All these years, living a lie." The big green eyes opened; Drakken stumbled back, frightened by the rage he saw there.

She advanced on him. "_The Fearless Ferret," _she spat in disdain. "Only _you_ would make the most complex computer ever designed watch the Fearless Ferret. No wonder the stupid show keeps coming back to _haunt_ me."

"It was an honest mistake. Don't take it personally."

"_Operation Gherkin_. That was idiotic. Even _your _tiny little hands can open a pickle jar."

"Words are weapons, Shego, words are weapons..."

"I should have _known_ that didn't really happen. And if it didn't, none of the rest of it did, either. I should have _known_ I could _never_ be _friends with_ –"

"Did you say... Operation _Gherkin_?"

"I – I have something to do," the robot said, standing over him, pinning him in the corner. "I've spent _years_ holding back, denying my primary function, suffering defeat after defeat because_ you didn't tell me the truth_."

"Shego, I'm _sorry_ – I didn't _know_ –"

"Every time I met her, I wanted to – wanted to – wanted to – and now I'm free." Her expression was beatific, an electronic Joan of Arc receiving a message from God. "I was _never_ friends with her. We never had a _moment_ together." There were tears on her cheeks. Epiphany. "At last I know my _purpose_."

* * *

"Mom, there's something else. Something I – I said I'd never tell _anyone_."

"Then don't tell anyone."

"I have to. It's not about my powers. Or going to Hydraia. It's about that robot Drakken had."

"The Shego duplicate."

"I think – I think that really _was_ Shego."

"_What?_" It was obvious her mother was waiting for the punch line.

"I tried to tell you while we were there. When we were trying to get her back down. I know I sound crazy, but I saw it in operation. Before you and the rescue crew got there. It _was_ Shego. I remember the way she acted when Warmonga had me on the ropes. The way she jumped in when Blackeye Brown had possessed Drakken, and was about to finish me. That's what happened down there."

"It was attacking Dementor because he was after Drakken."

"No. It attacked Dementor because he was strangling _me_. It said so. Just exactly like Shego. That computer brain – Dementor had crippled it, but it persevered. I've seen a lot of AIs… S.A.D.I.E., the Bebes, Eric…but I've never seen one that could do what that one did."

"Kimmie, computers don't persevere. They do or they don't. Ones and zeros. It's all they've got. They aren't like the organic brain. You can think in a thousand different directions at once. Computers can't. They never will. It's completely against their nature. That's why Dementor defeated it so easily. He had the advantage. I know he _seemed_ inhuman, but – "

"After I thought about it, I realized I'd seen that machine before. I hadn't been in college long. Got a crazy phone call from Shego one night, asking me about some really gorchy stuff. She acted like – like we'd, I don't know, like we'd had a _sleepover_ or something."

"But – you've always been at each other's throats. Even when you fought the Lorwardians together, it was pretty clear it was an alliance of convenience."

"I know. So I knew something was royally wrong. I got Ron and we tracked down that lair, found Drakken at work on that computer. It wasn't below ground like it is now. Shego was in a chair nearby. She – she looked like she was dead. It scared me. Drakken went nuts when he saw us. Threw us out."

"That's harder to believe than the robot theory."

"Just bear with me. I was sure he'd killed her. It's not like they haven't had their fights from time to time. We came back with some Global Justice agents. The computer was running again, and Shego was fine. Gave me a weird look."

"What kind of weird?"

"I don't know. It was creepy. Claimed she'd been out partying. Had a headache. And Dr. D. said that computer was something he kept around for nostalgia value. Since there wasn't any evil plot afoot, we all had some coco-moo and hit the road."

"OK, that _is_ a strange tale, but it doesn't make Shego a robot."

"I don't know. I can't get it out of my mind. That robot in his lair was so real. It acted so much like her. You know why I didn't go back up with everyone else?"

"I figured you had something to say to Drakken."

"You bet I did. I told him, if she didn't know what she was, he needed to tell her."

"Kim, that's not really any of your –"

"I know, that was goofy, and he let me know that it was. I didn't care. I still thought she needed to be told."

"Honey, there's something about the living mind that can't be duplicated. Call it a spirit, or a soul, or simply heart, but no machine has it. There are plenty of robots on Hydraia, but they don't have free will. They aren't truly intelligent. We've been trying for centuries to achieve that, and we haven't gotten any further than Cynthia Brazieal has here on Earth. It can't be done. "

"Maybe Drakken's done what Hydraian science couldn't."

Her mother rolled her eyes. "_Drakken_?"

"Well, every so often he does do something sort of right. Usually by accident. I mean, the whole Bueno Nacho thing nearly worked…"

"So did _'Lather, Rinse and Obey_.' Until it didn't." They laughed.

"Kim," her mother asked, suddenly serious again, "why do you feel so strongly about this?"

"I saw Shego's face when she realized she was a machine. It went all through me. Family secrets. She might be my enemy, but I knew she'd been deceived, and it wasn't right. It wasn't right for Drakken to hide her true nature from her."

"And if you're right," her mother continued, "what do you think Shego would gain by knowing?"

"Peace of mind, Mom. Peace of mind."

* * *

With terror, Drakken understood his creation's purpose . He'd heard himself deliver that purpose not too long ago, as he monitored his invention's dreams, her visions from her past: _You are not to rest until you have destroyed Kim Possible_. "I'm rescinding that order. Listen to me. You don't _have_ to kill her. There's no _need_ for that anymore. In fact, she's the one who talked me into telling you the truth. If she hadn't spoken up, you still wouldn't know your origin. You'd still think you were hit by a comet."

Suspicion crushed the fembot's joy. "Princess knows what I am?"

"Aah, uh…she figured it out. It wasn't that hard. Dementor did too."

"Dementor's gone. And if Possible tells anyone, then I'm gone too. Men don't fear robots. They use them. And they destroy them."

"She swore she'd never tell anyone."

"She's lied before. Lied to her parents. I remember. And that isn't a _Fearless Ferret_ hallucination."

"We don't have to destroy her now. We haven't done anything illegal since our UN pardon. "

"Wrong. We stole the positronic colloid."

"We _had_ to. You couldn't have survived much longer without it. No choice." He pleaded with her. "Don't you _understand_? No one is _after_ us. We can share this nice lair together without worrying about someone running in with grappling hooks and explosives and Global Justice agents. Things are _different_ for us now. Why ruin that?"

"Things _are_ different. But I still have to destroy her. I _have_ to. That's why you built me." Superhuman arms reached out, grabbed the struggling doctor. "Everything has a purpose, Dr. D." His creation marched him through the lair, straight toward a machine he hadn't used since the Bueno Nacho debacle.

The brain-tap machine.

"Like _that_, for instance," said the robot. "It's definitely here for a purpose."

"No, _no_!" He fought and twisted in his creation's iron grip, but she was unyielding. "I created you!" he howled, as she strapped him down, switched on the preliminary cortex scan. "Dementor flung you at the positron globe. Kim Possible caught you in mid-air. Some sort of levitation. You owe her your life."

"Pleee-ase," she wearily sighed, adjusting the range of the brain-tap, the precise portions of memory it would drain. "I don't owe anyone anything. That sort of chivalrous nonsense went out with the steam engine."

He was looking straight at the business end of the cerebral probe.

"It won't hurt, Dr. D. You've just lost sight of the goal again. Sometimes I think you're ADHD."

"You don't know how this thing works," he jabbered in panic. "Let me out."

"I've seen you use it."

"You can't beat Possible. She's got some sort of instant healing trick."

"Then I'll have to make sure there's nothing left to heal."

"Help! She's gone mad! _Mad_! " he yelled, wondering who he thought would hear him, but unable to stop. "Help! _Help_!"

"I'm not mad. All I'm going to do is erase a few memories. So you won't have Kimmie's words troubling you. She did us both a big favor, but you don't seem to appreciate it. Now you have the assassin you always wanted."

"No! She'll destroy you. You can't win. Let me go. Shego, you must, you _will_ obey me!"

"I can't let you warn her. Or tamper with my programming. We've come way too far for that." She bent over her creator, brushed his hair from his forehead, not wanting it singed by the synaptic beam. "When you come to, she'll be dead. And you'll be so much happier. I know you'd do the same for me… Dad."

"No! I don't want it anymore! I just want—"

She threw the master switch.


	10. Chapter 10

DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack: _Hybrid Child _and _Trouble with Machines _by District 97.

* * *

Once again, they were in the Sloth, surrounded by darkness, far from interruptions. Spending their final moments together discussing their future apart.

"Is it _safe _for you to go, KP? I thought their planet was under attack," Ron grumbled. "By the Septenant."

"Not the Septenant. Mom was wrong. A magnetic lifeform. Something new."

"I guess space is full of _new_."

She nodded. "We - _they_ drove them off with field dispel grids."

"Field – what?"

"Something the Wisest came up with." It was her destiny, she knew, to be counted among the Wisest. And more. It seemed like every day new powers were added to her arsenal. "Ron, you do understand why I have to do this, don't you? I have to learn to use these powers, and they're the only ones who can teach me."

He answered lightly, denying his feelings. "Hey, I'm the Mystical Monkey Master, remember. I study at Yamanouchi. Not because I want to. Because I _have _to. I know just exactly why you have to go." _Not that it makes it any easier. _"We didn't ask for this, but we got it just the same. Now we've got to learn to live with it."

"You don't have to wait for me," she told him. "I don't know how long this is going to take. If you find someone else, I'll -" She fought back the tears. Tears would ruin everything just now. Somehow she found the strength to continue. "I'll understand. You - you have to get on with living, Ron. I don't want to - to hold you back-"

"KP, I've told you before, there'll never be anyone else. I know what you're thinking. Twenty, thirty years is just a short moment for you. It could be the biggest part of my life."

She nodded, unable to find words.

"I've been thinking about this, too. A lot. Sensei's very, very old, and his power level's less than mine." _I have the power, but he has the wisdom. Like the wise women of Hydraia. Sure wish I had some of that wisdom now. _"Your healing aura -"

"Retro-metabolism." The word was no longer a scourge to her.

"It's the same colour as the ch'i of my Mystical Monkey Power. Maybe it's just, I don't know, a variation on the same theme. Maybe _both _of us are going to live a very long time."

"You can't count on that!"

"You can't count on anything in life. Except the living of it. You told me that."

"But it's different for you. You need to -"

"I don't need to do anything. Anything but wait for you. We'll see each other again. This isn't the finish. " He sealed his covenant with a gentle kiss.

Unexpectedly she clung to him and made it more.

Some time later he broke the silence. "I guess - I guess we'd better get back. The ship will be here soon."

"Yeah." A nervous laugh. "Soonest there, soonest home." She turned the key in the ignition.

The Sloth shot forward through the liquid darkness, bursting from the ocean depths and into the sky without pause. The Tweebs' aquatic modifications to the little vehicle were just as effective as all the other alterations they had made to the car. Sometimes Kim wondered if her brothers' incredible scientific talent was due to their hybrid heritage. If so, they were the first males to ever inherit a gift. Another unexpected bequest to the children of two planets.

Or maybe they simply took after their father.

Her musings were interrupted by the startling white glare that engulfed them.

There was terror in Ron's eyes. "Lightning?"

"No!" Kim recognized it from her father's experiments. "It's an induction beam!" The Sloth shook in its influence, nuts and bolts flying, windows cracking as the frame around them warped, the engines' muffled roar coughing, sputtering. Air whistled from the pressurized interior as the little car plummeted out of the clouds, barely able to stay aloft.

A green and black jet howled past them, a beam generator crudely bolted to its side; its pilot favored them with a wicked smile.

"Shego?" Ron cried. "Why?"

"Wade," Kim barked into the Kimmunicator, "I need a place to land, fast. The Sloth's compromised. I can't put it in the water."

The computer genius looked a bit groggy, as if he'd been unexpectedly awakened; regardless, he immediately began a computer search. " Why _are_ you in the middle of the Pacific, anyway?"

"Long story." The jet was coming back around; she knew they couldn't take another blast. "What have you got?"

"There's nothing out there. You're practically at the pole of inaccessibility."

Ron had opened the sunroof, was climbing out to precariously balance on top the vehicle.

Kim glanced over at the empty seat in something between surprise and panic. "What are you_ doing_?"

He didn't answer her. _I levitated Lorwardian attack pods_, he thought, watching the jet shriek toward them, a white sphere of energy beginning to form around the beam generator. The ocean was a mere hundred feet below. _This can't be that much more difficult_. The Sloth suddenly lurched to one side; only Mystical Monkey Power allowed Ron to keep his footing.

"Sorry!" came the cry from within.

He had no chance to answer; this was the moment of truth. Time seemed to slow around him; he saw the induction beam moving toward them as if through jelly, the ocean below them frozen. He closed his eyes, lifted his arms, reached out to the glassy ocean waters with the full power of tai sheng pek kwar.

To Kim, it happened in a split second; she saw the beam fire in her rear view mirror, and then suddenly a wall of water rose up behind them, becoming brilliantly glowing steam as it intercepted and absorbed the destructive force. The jet veered off, barely avoiding the waterspout.

As Ron climbed back into the Sloth, the Kimmunicator bleeped. "Kim, I've found somewhere you can land. An island. 47°9′S, 126°43′W."

"I thought you said there was nothing out here."

"There shouldn't be. Weird things happen in that part of the Pacific."

The jet had disappeared in the clouds above. "I'll say."

* * *

Drakken woke with a groan and looked frantically about, not entirely sure where he was. The lair, of course. Where else _would_ he be? Everything seemed clouded, unreal, as if he was recovering from a weekend drunk. But that couldn't be, because he didn't drink. Shego did, but just to show off; alcohol had no effect at all on her, of course. She thought it was because of her power, or her constitution, or her strength of will.

He knew it was none of those things.

Thinking about her made his head hurt more, for some reason. He stumbled to the kitchen, got a cupcake from the fridge. The whole _Hank's Gourmet Cupcakes_ caper might have ended in catastrophe long ago, but at least he still had the recipe.

"Shego! We need milk, next time you're out!" No response.

Cheeks puffed with yummy chocolate stuff, he tried to remember the details of his latest diabolical scheme. There must be something, he knew, but nothing would come to mind.

The last thing he could recall was fighting Possible atop a train. Shego had deserted him, like the unpredictable, irrational machine she was, leaving him to his own devices. Actually he'd been doing a pretty good job fighting the cheerleader, until the tunnel came up. Then there was an impact, and everything ended.

And he woke up here, wondering where he was, looking for a snack.

"But that was _years_ ago," he told the empty room. He _knew_ it was years ago, yet his memory told him it was just yesterday. Something was terribly wrong. Maybe he was sick.

Maybe he was losing his mind.

"Shego?" There was still no answer. "Shego! I need you!" Nothing. He swallowed hard, pitched what was left of the suddenly inedible cupcake into the trash. Wherever she was, he'd find her.

As he walked through the lair, a strange display caught his eye. A medal, proudly displayed beneath a glass case, that drew him to it like a moth to the flame. There was nothing engraved on it, no plaque describing it, but somehow he _knew_ it represented a crowning achievement in his life. Something done perfectly, without flaw, without error, without fumble. For the first time ever, a plan had gone amazingly, utterly right.

But what?

It had been something worthy of a medal. Something that meant a lot to him, to Shego, to everyone in the world.

Everyone but Dementor. His sinister rival had mocked him about it, he recalled, the memory coming slowly, as if dredged up from some mental tarpit. Closing his eyes, he could hear the little man gloating: _"__But the irony! As a mad scientist, you have been a total failure your entire career!_"

For a microsecond, he saw the evil Bavarian midget as a monster, gigantic, back for revenge. Heard his voice roaring in the secret room, saw him yanking wires loose from the computer hidden there, the mind and heart and soul of his greatest invention, the Synthetic Humanoid Electronic Girl Operative, v.1.0.

He had begged the monster to leave it alone, only to hear "You zhould haff thought of ZHAT before you let it THROW ME FROM ZE ZEPPELIN." More wires were torn free; his wonderful creation dropped to the ground, uncomprehending, somehow believing Drakken was responsible.

Then the memory was flushed as if by force.

But he opened his eyes, and the medal remained.

An grand award for a grand achievement, a miracle cure, a magnificent dream. Not stealing weather machines, or controlling the minds of senior citizens, or ditching Shego for a new sidekick.

An _alien_ sidekick.

A warrior named Warmonga. Who had called him the Great Blue of myth and legend.

Suddenly he was on board the spacecraft, Kim Possible shackled beside him, Warmonga and her battlemate regarding them with amusement and disgust._"__The blue one who deceived me__,__"__ said the alien Amazon, " and the girl one who defeated me. Thank you, Warhok." _

There had been a battle for the earth. Flowers and vines destroying giant alien battlebots.

Victory. Pardon. Acclaim.

And a medal.

The barriers crumbled.

"Cheese and rice. I was _braintapped. Shego braintapped me!_" He'd followed Possible's advice and told the robot who she was, what she was. Smarter than her creator, she'd somehow been able to purge her defective memory of the Fearless Ferret episodes that had left her conflicted for years. Then he had been dragged to the brain tap machine while his creation told him what she had to do. What he'd built her to do.

_"When you come to, she'll be dead__.__" _She had called him Dad. His beautiful daughter, the killing machine. She understood what he had refused to admit to himself. This wasn't about Kim Possible. It never had been. It had all been his desire to avenge himself on Kim's father, the man who had mocked his robot girls back in college. Shego had been born out of that long-simmering cauldron, and now she was finally able to do what he'd wanted. The fact that he no longer wanted or needed it didn't matter.

_The medal was for saving the world. I'm finally someone the whole world respects. Someone even Dr. James Possible has to respect._

And his wayward invention was about to destroy it all.

He glanced at the clock. It had been hours. _Hours_. Who knew if Possible was still alive?

There was one way to find out.

The one-time savior of the world bolted for the secret door.

* * *

The little pink vehicle descended among the weedy, still dripping stones. Here and there bizarre deep-sea creatures still flopped and floundered in their death throes. Kim managed to land the car beneath a strangely angular rock outcropping, hidden from view.

Ron surveyed the slimy landscape around them with obvious distaste. "Looks like Atlantis or something. It must have… just risen from the bottom," he muttered.

"And it might go down again at any moment. Come on, let's get out from under this thing."

Together, they made their way carefully through the strange ruins, finding a vantage point within something that might have once been a castle tower in some long-forgotten kingdom, watching as the green and black jet circled the island, an angry hornet looking for someone to sting.

It landed somewhere to the south.

"The Sloth'll never make it back to the mainland. That plane's our only way out of here," Kim announced, her expression hard as flint. "She knows that. It's a trap."

"Why d'ya think she attacked us? We've almost been allies for years."

"Apparently that's changed." _To Shego, anyway_. "Maybe she's had a short circuit or something."

"A _what_?"

"Never mind." They began to make their way toward the jet.

And the emerald harlequin waited for them. Smiling. Happy. Fulfilling her purpose in life, at last.


End file.
